Semi-Automatic RTL Methods for System-on-Chip IP Delivery in the Cyber-Physical System Era

With the dawn of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) the relevance of System-on-Chips equipped with run-time configurable, application-specific macrocells increases as numerous tasks has to be taken over from the microprocessors in order to cope with the real-time requirements typical of CPS applications. One of the largest challenges of macrocell design is to conform to the demand for increasing computation capacities while keeping the development effort low to handle time-to-market requirements and reduce design cost. This article presents a novel method for creating RTL models of SoCs’ reusable macrocells. The proposed method is based on a novel modeling language (AMDL) offering a reduced design time while making the microarchitectural details fully accessible for the designer to ensure the required level of optimization. Beside the formal definitions of the language’s semantic elements, the results of design efficiency investigations, moreover, a comparison of AMDL and the similar solutions are also presented.