Embedded Systems Design - March 2008 - (Page 31)

0308esd.p27to31 2/13/08 7:54 PM Page 31 feature modes. Test scenarios for these types of designs are complex and numerous, as they involve system-level hardware and software with many subtle corner cases. Fortunately, while these mechanisms may be more complex to verify, they dramatically reduce the complexity for software teams that are end-users of the devices in which these mechanisms live. Using atomic transactions as a new veriﬁcation tool: Although verifying atomic-transaction mechanisms is akin to handling yet another complex piece of IP, its more interesting to explore what atomic transactions can deliver as a veriﬁcation tool. Managing complex concurrency is an issue for hardware veriﬁcation engineers as well—and will soon be a much broader one for those verifying software. Atomic transactions can simplify the complexity of concurrency and consequently accelerate veriﬁcation efforts and reduce bugs in testbenches and models developed by veriﬁcation teams. When validating concurrent designs, test-case stimulus generation can get complex, involving contortions and a lot of complex control to induce desired conditions. Atomic transactions simplify the speciﬁcation of the requisite conditions under which a test case should be performed—and simplify the generation of the proper stimulus. Atomic transactions allow each test case to be written succinctly and separately. Other veriﬁcation activities that can be challenging, especially when concurrency comes into play or cycle accuracy is required, are creating golden reference models, system models, and veriﬁcation models. Designing these types of models typically takes much longer than desired or required and often involves much more debugging than acceptable. With its much simpler concurrency model, atomic transactions accelerate the development of these types of models and dramatically reduce the bugs. And, the best thing of all, these models and testbenches can be synthesized into efﬁcient RTL for use in emulators and FPGAs. Imagine being able to develop a golden reference model quickly and run it in hardware against a synthesizable testbench at orders of magnitude faster than simulation. DUT designed with atomic transactions: When veriﬁcation teams are the downstream beneﬁciaries of designs built using atomic transactions instead of traditional, lower-level concurrency mechanisms, the veriﬁcation teams will adapt their methods and experience improvements in the veriﬁcation process thanks to the design’s stronger interface semantics and simpler concurrency model. I’ll explain the methods and improvements in part two of this article, posted online at Embedded.com. ■ George Harper is vice president of marketing at Bluespec and has more than 15 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. He holds a BSEE and MSEE in electrical engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard University. He can be reached at gharper@bluespec.com. EMBEDDED STOR AGE SOLUTIONS Reliable File Systems HCC specializes in storage solutions for embedded systems COMPLETE USB SOLUTIONS USB Stacks Embedded Pipe Windows driver for embedded application control SAFE NAND Flash NOR Flash Data Flash uC Flash Data Flash Serial Fash USB Device Mass Storage MTP CDC HID Embedded Pipe Bootloader Mass Storage Printer CDC HUB HID Embedded Pipe TINY USB Host FAT File Systems Quick Start storage devboards are available for: MSP340, LPC2xxx, STR7xx, XC16x, AT91SAM7, 8051 and more. HDDs MMC/SD/SDHC Compact Flash NAND Flash OTG FAT Supported Targets Include: EHCI, OHCI, ISP1161, ISP1362, ISP1561/2, ISP1761, MAX3421e, STR71x, STR91x, LPC2148, LPC23xx, LPC24xx, LPC3180, AT91SAM7xx, AT91SAM926x, AT91RM9200, MPC834x, MCF52xxx, MCF53xx, MCF54xx THIN MMC/SD/SDHC Compact Flash Data Flash NAND Flash All our systems are sold royalty free with full C source code and our unrivalled suppor t. Embedded design, realization and porting services available www.hcc–embedded.com www.embedded.com | embedded systems design | MARCH 2008 31 http://www.embedded.com http://www.hcc-embedded.com http://www.hcc-embedded.com http://www.embedded.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design - March 2008

Embedded Systems Design - March 2008 Contents #Include Programming Pointers Designing DSP-based Motor Control Using Fuzzy Logic Hardware/Software Verification Enters the Atomic Age Efficient CRC Calculation with Minimal Memory Footprint Programming Your Own Microcontroller Advertising Index Break Points Marketplace

Embedded Systems Design - March 2008

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