VCDS: virtual core based design system

The Design Productivity Crisis of LSI towards 2010 have been discussed for a few years especially in SEMATECH, USA. The innovation of LSI design methodology will be the most effective way to resolve the issues of the design crisis. SIRIJ, Semiconductor Industry Research Institute Japan, has organized 'VCDS Committee' to research the next generation EDA system towards 2010. 'VCDS: Virtual Core based Design System' is proposed as the next generation EDA system to solve the issues of the design crisis. VCDS provides designers with VCs: Virtual Cores and the VC based design methodology to reduce the design time and the power consumption of system LSI for electronic systems drastically. VCDS technologies are based on hardware/software codesign and IP re-use methodologies. VCDS consists of VCDB (VC Data Base), VCPF (VC Platform), System Synthesizer and VC Synthesizer. VCDB stores high level and flexible IPs called VCs (Virtual Cores). The VCs are defined as abstract and flexible functionality at system level and are categorized by the application domains. The designer stores VCs in the VCDB by use of the registration tool of VCPF and search and instantiate them from the database via VCPF. System Synthesizer of VCDS consists of system specification definition tools, evaluation tools for hardware/software tradeoff and validation/verification, optimization tools for hardware/software codesign, the generation tools for system architecture, and the software generation tools for software compiler and software development environment. The generated system architecture consists of hardware VCs and software VCs. VC Synthesizer generates the physical design of each VC in the system architecture. VCDS is proposed as the next generation EDA system to make the solution of the coming design crisis. VCDS makes designers to define the system specification by selecting system level VCs and decide the optimum combination of hardware/software efficiently.