Computer System Designs: System-on-Chip

7

Application Studies

7.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter describes various applications to illustrate the opportunities and trade-offs in SOC design. It also shows how some of the techniques described in earlier chapters can be applied.

We first present an approach for developing SOC designs. Then we illustrate the proposed techniques in analyzing simple designs for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Next, we have a look at 3-D computer graphics, showing the use of analysis and prototyping techniques and their application to a simplified PS2 system. After that we describe compression methods for still image and real-time video, as well as a few other applications to illustrate the variety of requirements and architectures of SOCs.

Our discussion separates requirements from designs that can be shown to meet the requirements. Requirements cover what are needed, while a design includes sufficient implementation detail for it to be evaluated against the requirements.

7.2 SOC DESIGN APPROACH

Figure 7.1 shows a simplified SOC design approach based on the material from the preceding chapters. Chapter 2 introduces five big issues in SOC design: performance, die area, power consumption, reliability, and configurability. These issues provide the basis on which design specification and run-time requirements for SOC designs can be captured. An initial design can then be developed, which would show promise in meeting the key requirements. This initial design can then be systematically optimized ...