Designing SOCs with Configured Cores

5.14. Platform Design

These same system-level design techniques can be used to develop reusable platform architectures. In particular, the ability to specify the structure and architecture of a platform subsystem, to simulate and analyze it, and to iterate on the number and types of processor(s) and the structure of the associated memory hierarchy and communications subsystems, are very helpful to SOC designers who have previously developed their system designs based more on gut feel and the mechanical selection of old, familiar system architectures rather than quantitative simulation results that produce more efficient, better optimized designs.

Often, what’s missing is the ability to drive platform design with a product’s actual application ...