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HDL-Design Challenges and Philosophies for Real-World ASIC ImplementationsPublication: EDN Magazine July 24, 2008 -- New requirements for the MAC (medium-access control) and PHY (physical-layer interface) of a wireless-communications system can pose significant challenges for system designers looking to quickly get from development to production. This situation holds especially true as the demands for wireless connectivity and increased data rates continue to grow rapidly. The migration to new standards, such as 802.11n and WiMax (worldwide interoperability for microwave), requires designers to add new features, which necessitates the addition of a significant number of resources to design validation, testing, and integration of already-large, complex designs. FPGAs are excellent, cost-effective resources when it comes to initial design validation. Designers may spend a considerable amount of time prototyping not only new functional blocks, but also the entire wireless system on an FPGA platform. When a design cycle reaches the point at which a custom-silicon option is necessary for real-world performance and reliability testing, designers must translate the FPGA design into an ASIC implementation for the end product to be viable. This situation ultimately leads to a key question for any SOC (system-on-chip) developer looking to add cutting-edge wireless functions to a design: How can you make the transition from a rock-solid FPGA design to a viable ASIC as swift and as painless as possible? The answer lies in an HDL (hardware-description-language)-design philosophy that keeps in mind from the outset the needs of the ASIC engineers: speed, area, and power efficiency. By Jesse Chen. (Chen is an FPGA/ASIC-hardware design engineer at Silvus Technologies, Inc.) | |
Reprinted from SOCcentral.com, your first stop for ASIC, FPGA, EDA, and IP news and design information. | |