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QC 20110214

The relaxed constraints on Bluetooth RF front-end implementation, together with the requirement of frequency hopping, result in a frequency offset and drift elimination or reduction problem. In the Spirea Bluetooth radio solution BlueTraC, a scalable digital demodulator is used, which gives a flexible, fast, and tunable frequency adjusting implementation. To increase the dynamic range the existing transmit chain is used to tune the LO during receive mode., NR 20140805

System-level exploration of memory organizations is a key issue in successful implementation of data dominated applications based on dynamically allocated data structures involving records and access keys. This paper presents a formalized technique for exploring different memory data-format alternatives when only the system level functional behavior of the application has been defined. Our data-format exploration approach allows to substantially minimize the number of accessed bits by rearranging the format of the data records. The technique exploits parallelism in the data transfer by analyzing the dependencies between data-record accesses. As a result, significant reduction in memory size, bandwidth, and power are obtained. We have validated our techniques using several real-life asynchronous transfer mode cell processing applications, where we have obtained reductions in memory size (up to 20%), power (up to a 60%), and bandwidth., QC 20100525

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Grammars define syntax of languages and as such have not been commonly considered as methods for design, despite well-known applications in computer science. Only in recent years grammar-based design has become a promising research field and the first commercial tools have appeared on the market. This paper reviews the basic concepts of applying grammars to electronic design - in particular to the device driver synthesis of communication protocols for embedded software, to the design of custom-hardware, and to the virtual prototyping of DSP systems. The paper shows the power of these methods, presents the latest research results and discusses future developments in this field., QC 20100525

Embedded cores are gaining widespread use to deal with the complex DSP systems where flexibility is of utmost importance. The design of such a system offers several problems, which are not addressed by the existing methodology. The authors previously presented an integrated grammar based DSP design methodology that separates architectural and functional specification, can create a virtual prototype and has a smooth link to the implementation phase. In this paper we present the extension of the work to handle embedded cores. Here we the capture the host peripheral interface (HPI) of TMS320C6x core at higher level of abstraction and provide a single simulation environment, which facilitates faster analysis of hardware software components. Our results reveal that the proposed methodology offers simulation time speed-up of 5 times and design time speed-up of 8 times, while keeping the architectural specification separated from functionality, NR 20140805

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A specialised reconfigurable architecture for telecommunication base-band processing is augmented with testing resources. The routing network is linked via virtual wire hardware modules to reduce the area occupied by connecting buses. The number of switches within the routing matrices is also minimised, which increases throughput without sacrificing flexibility. The testing algorithm was developed to systematically search for faults in the processing modules and the flexible high-speed routing network within the architecture. The testing algorithm starts by scanning the externally addressable memory space and testing the master controller. The controller then tests every switch in the route-through switch matrix by making loops from the shared memory to each of the switches. The local switch matrix is also tested in the same way. Next the local memory is scanned. Finally, pre-defined test vectors are loaded into local memory to check the processing modules. This algorithm scans all possible paths within the interconnection network exhaustively and reports all faults. Strategies can be inserted to bypass minor faults, NR 20140805

As we move from algorithm on a chip to system on a chip era, the design bottleneck is shifting from individual DSP functions to global control that composes a system from these functions. The practice in industry suffers from global control entering the design flow too late, discontinuity between functional modeling and implementation phase and mixing data flow with global control. MASIC-Maths to ASIC-is a methodology proposed in this paper that targets DSP SOCs and addresses these issues. Global control is specified in a grammar notation and integrates the output of functional modeling phase, the DSP functions, by referencing them. A virtual prototype is automatically built from such a specification that models the global control in VHDL and cosimulates with the DSP functions in C from the functional modeling phase. A highly efficient verification methodology based on separating the verification of global control from DSP functions is proposed. A smooth path to cycle true implementation is possible using either behavioral synthesis, IPs for the DSP functions or manual implementation. Experiments using realistic examples like GSM base band processing, rake receiver and some smaller examples have been carried out to quantify the benefits of MASIC., QC 20100525

A protocol defines how systems communicate, There are two ways of specifying the protocol, the language of communication, One way is to specify the automaton that recognizes the language, and this is the approach taken by SDL, etc. The other more abstract way is to specify the grammar of the language and let a tool synthesize the automaton, Directly specifying the automaton makes the specification implementation dependent in two ways: the time behavior is specified in terms of states, and the width of the inputs and outputs is fixed, By specifying the grammar, the specification is potentially independent of both these implementation details and allows design space exploration in these dimensions. This paper presents a grammar-based language, called ProGram, that supports a port-size independent specifications methodology and its application to parts of the Operation and Maintenance protocol, a typical application from the ATM world. The methodology has also been applied to another test set of example designs and compared to standard RTL synthesis and HLS in order to evaluate the quality of the produced designs., QC 20100525

A protocol defines how systems communicate. There are two ways of specifying the protocol, the language of communication. One way is to specify the automaton that recognizes the language, and this is the approach taken by SDL, etc. The other more abstract way ss to specify the grammar of the language and let a tool synthesize the automaton. Directly specifying the automaton makes the specification implementation dependent in two ways: the time behavior is specified in terms of states, and the width of the inputs and outputs is fixed. By specifying the grammar, the specification is potentially independent of both these implementation details and allows design space exploration in these dimensions. This paper presents a grammar-based language, called Program, that supports a port-size independent specifications methodology and its application to parts of the Operation and Maintenance protocol, a typical application from the ATM world. The methodology has also been applied to another test set of example designs and compared to standard RTL synthesis and HLS in order to evaluate the quality of the produced designs., NR 20140805 QC 20220131

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By using the four domains of computation, data, communication, and time, this model can represent mixed hardware/software designs and related co-design processes at various levels of abstraction., QC 20100525

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This paper describes the restructuring of VLSI education at Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. Changing needs of industry, advances in technology and design methodology has required a significant reorganisation of VLSI education with emphasis on system issues. This restructuring is not viewed as a one step process, rather as a continuous process including close interaction between education and research, NR 20140805

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