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Prototyping, in all its forms, provides powerful methods for verifying the design of hardware and validating the software in models, which to a greater or lesser degree, mimic the target environment. FPGA-based prototyping is especially beneficial during the crucial later stages of the project when hardware and software are integrated for the first time. Users have several prototyping options and depending on their main requirements can choose between various software- and hardwarebased techniques to prototype their designs.
Owing to the fact that design verification and software development now dominate SoC development effort, the use of prototyping has never been more important in reducing project duration and design costs. The various IC trends mentioned above lead us also to only one conclusion: prototyping has become a necessary element of chip design and will become only more crucial in the future, as we shall see in the final chapter of this book. In this chapter, we have introduced a lot of terminology and some quite different types of prototyping. How widespread are each of them in real life? To answer this we refer to Figure 14 which summarizes 116 responses to a usage survey made during the SoC Virtual Conference in August 2009. When asked the question “What method(s) do/will you use to develop hardware dependent software (e.g., drivers, firmware) for your design project?”, the results show that users do indeed recognize a variety of distinct prototyping solutions. The results indicate that all the prototyping techniques described earlier are in active use – a clear result of the different priorities as discussed above – favoring different prototyping options. In the following chapter we will zoom in on the benefits of FPGA-based prototyping in particular to software teams and to the whole SoC project. The authors gratefully acknowledge significant contribution to this chapter from Frank Schirrmeister of Synopsys, Mountain View
Figure 13: Users recognizing a variety of prototyping options
In this chapter, we have introduced a lot of terminology and some quite different types of prototyping. How widespread are each of them in real life? To answer this we refer to Figure 14 which summarizes 116 responses to a usage survey made during the SoC Virtual Conference in August 2009. When asked the question “What method(s) do/will you use to develop hardware dependent software (e.g., drivers, firmware) for your design project?”, the results show that users do indeed recognize a variety of distinct prototyping solutions. The results indicate that all the prototyping techniques described earlier are in active use – a clear result of the different priorities as discussed above – favoring different prototyping options.
In the following chapter we will zoom in on the benefits of FPGA-based prototyping in particular to software teams and to the whole SoC project.
Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories: Memory - Configuration Proms for FPGA's
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Manufacturer:Xilinx
Product Categories: Programmable logic array
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