Reuse-based methodology in developing System-on-Chip (SoC)

Abstract

System-on-Chip (SoC) plays a key role in building various embedded systems. With the advance of SoC technology, the complexity of SoC is sharply increasing. In addition, there is a great industry demand on technologies for producing reusable SoC components. However, conventional SoC approaches focus largely on designing the lower-level details of SoC at hardware level without going through modellevel engineering. They also do not address the reusability issues of SoC. In this paper, we propose a solution framework for producing reusable SoC in a cost-effective way by adopting model-level engineering such as domain analysis, variability analysis, and component design. We first identify the three dimensions of reusing SoC, and analyze eight different cases of reusing SoC. Then, we present software engineering techniques that can be effectively utilized in developing reusing SoC. Finally, we define a methodology for a most demanding case. The key contribution of our research lies on three folds; identifying dimensions and feasible cases of reusing SoC, identifying effective software engineering techniques for developing reusable SoC, and defining a reuse-focused methodology of SoC. © 2006 IEEE.