All About Circuits: Speeding Derivative SoC Designs With Networks-on-Chips

With the help of a case study, we examine how adopting NoC technology can significantly improve the process of updating existing chip designs.

When people talk about the creation of SoCs (systems-on-chips), they typically consider the tools, technologies, and flows associated with developing a new SoC from the ground up. Less discussed but equally important are the challenges associated with taking an existing SoC and using it as the foundation for a derivative design.

The idea of a derivative design is to modify a relatively small portion of a field-proven SoC, perhaps replacing one or more of its functions with upgraded offerings, while keeping the larger proportion of the design as-is. With users constantly requiring “more” in terms of performance and features and “less” in terms of power consumption and cost, derivative designs have the following advantages:

• Leveraging knowledge gained from the original.
• Minimizing cost.
• Limiting demands on resources.
• Reducing risk.
• Speeding time to market.

Creating an entirely new SoC is resource-intensive, time-consuming, and expensive by comparison. However, designing a derivative SoC isn’t without its own challenges, as we’ll soon see.

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