Designing SOCs with Configured Cores

15.3. System-Level Design Challenges

A processor-centric, system-level design approach has the potential to address the five disaster scenarios, but that doesn’t mean that all of the associated problems are solved and the solutions are well in hand. Many challenges remain.

Of the many remaining challenges, perhaps the most important is transforming the art of SOC design into a more rigorous, engineering discipline while retaining the freedom to innovate architecturally. Some academic research and corporate effort has gone into an attempt to reduce SOC architectural design to a systematic, almost push-button approach. This book does not advocate such a reductionist approach to system-level design. Instead, this book advocates something more akin ...