Designing SOCs with Configured Cores

Chapter 5. MPSOC System Architectures and Design Tools

In pioneer days they used oxen for heavy pulling, and when one ox couldn’t budge a log, they didn’t try to grow a larger ox. We shouldn’t be trying for bigger computers, but for more systems of computers.

—Admiral Grace Hopper

If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use: Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?

—Seymour Cray

All SOC architectures in the 21st century will consist of many interconnected hardware blocks. There’s simply no other possible design approach that can reconcile the complexity of mega-gate SOCs with the mental abilities and capacities of human designers. Many SOC blocks will contain memories, some will consist of custom-designed logic, some will be pre-designed ...