Design & Reuse: Automating Hardware-Software Consistency in Complex SoCs

Engineering teams must coordinate across hardware and software domains as system-on-chip (SoC) designs scale in complexity. Designers must verify that register definitions remain accurate and synchronized throughout the development cycle. Effective hardware-software integration is critical, as even minor inconsistencies in register descriptions can disrupt memory access, peripheral control, and power management. These issues lead to firmware failures, costly debugging cycles, and potential silicon respins.

Traditional methods rely on spreadsheets and manual updates, which are prone to errors and difficult to maintain across multiple teams and tools. These challenges grow when integrating third-party IP, as register formats often vary, requiring engineers to reconcile and translate data manually. Without a structured, automated solution, inconsistencies in bitfields, access policies, or address allocations can propagate across verification and firmware development, increasing the risk of late design cycle failures and compliance challenges.

Aligning Hardware and Software

Arteris’ Magillem Registers streamlines register definition, validation, and synchronization, reducing the risk of misalignment between hardware and software. Maintaining a single source of truth enables seamless integration of third-party IP, accelerates SoC development, and facilitates compliance with evolving industry standards. This level of automation significantly enhances the likelihood of first-pass silicon success by mitigating the risks associated with register inconsistencies and late-stage debugging.

Magillem Registers eliminates these inefficiencies by facilitating register consistency across development domains. The system compiles 100,000 registers in seconds and 5 million registers in minutes for SoC designs. Over 1,000 validation checks detect errors before they impact verification and firmware development, improving integration accuracy and design success.

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