Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chips

5.6. Conclusions

The steady, rapid improvement in SoC gate density opens the door to a wide spectrum of new digital products, from optical-rate routers to multi-mega-pixel digital cameras. However, the difficulty of designing millions of gates of new logic for each SoC threatens to frustrate this potential. A new design methodology—configuration, extension, and programming of application-specific processors in place of RTL logic design—offers important benefits and allows system designers to exploit the gate counts of mega-gate SoCs.

The net result of introducing the configurable, extensible processor core as a design component and methodology is a fundamental disruption of the traditional decade-old methodology for RTL-based chip design. This ...