M.G. Sami – författare

LOW power design is playing an important role in today ultra-large scale integration (ULSI) design, particularly as we continue to double the number of transistors on a die every two years and increase the frequency of operation at fairly the same rate. Certainly, an important aspect of low power faces with mobile communications and it has a huge impact on our lives, as we are at the start-line of the proliferation of mobile PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants), Wireless LAN and portable multi-media computing. All of these devices are shaping the way we will be interacting with our family, peers and workplace, thus requiring also a new and innovative low power design paradigm. Furthermore, low power design techniques are becoming paramount in high performance desktop, base-station and server applications, such as high-speed microprocessors, where excess in power dissipation can lead to a number of cooling, reliability and signal integrity concerns severely burdening the total industrialcost. Hence, low power design can be easily anticipated to further come into prominence as we move to next generation System-on-Chip and Network-on-Chip designs. This book is entirely devoted to disseminate the results of a long term research program between Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and STMic- electronics, in the field of architectural exploration and optimization techniques to designing low power embedded systems.

Concurrent design, or co-design of hardware and software is extremely important for meeting design goals, such as high performance, that are the key to commercial competitiveness. Hardware/Software Co-Design covers many aspects of the subject, including methods and examples for designing: (1) general purpose and embedded computing systems based on instruction set processors; (2) telecommunication systems using general purpose digital signal processors as well as application specific instruction set processors; (3) embedded control systems and applications to automotive electronics. The book also surveys the areas of emulation and prototyping systems with field programmable gate array technologies, hardware/software synthesis and verification, and industrial design trends. Most contributions emphasize the design methodology, the requirements and state of the art of computer aided co-design tools, together with current design examples.

This text discusses the introduction of innovative power estimation and optimization methodologies to support the design of low power embedded systems based on high-performance Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) microprocessors. A VLIW processor is a (generally) pipelined processor that can execute, in each clock cycle, a set of explicitly parallel operations; this set of operations is statically scheduled to form a Very Long Instruction Word. The proposed estimation techniques are integrated into a set of tools operating at the instruction level and they are characterized by efficiency and accuracy. The aim is the definition of an overall power estimation framework, from a system-level perspective, where novel power optimization techniques can be evaluated. The proposed power optimization techniques are addressed to the micro-architectural as well as the system level. Two main optimization techniques have been proposed: the definition of register file write inhibition schemes that exploit the forwarding paths, and the definition of a design exploration framework for an efficient fine-tuning of the configurable modules of an embedded system.

LOW power design is playing an important role in today ultra-large scale integration (ULSI) design, particularly as we continue to double the number of transistors on a die every two years and increase the frequency of operation at fairly the same rate. Certainly, an important aspect of low power faces with mobile communications and it has a huge impact on our lives, as we are at the start-line of the proliferation of mobile PDA’s (Personal Digital Assistants), Wireless LAN and portable multi-media computing. All of these devices are shaping the way we will be interacting with our family, peers and workplace, thus requiring also a new and innovative low power design paradigm. Furthermore, low power design techniques are becoming paramount in high performance desktop, base-station and server applications, such as high-speed microprocessors, where excess in power dissipation can lead to a number of cooling, reliability and signal integrity concerns severely burdening the total industrialcost. Hence, low power design can be easily anticipated to further come into prominence as we move to next generation System-on-Chip and Network-on-Chip designs. This book is entirely devoted to disseminate the results of a long term research program between Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and STMic- electronics, in the field of architectural exploration and optimization techniques to designing low power embedded systems.

Concurrent design, or co-design of hardware and software is extremely important for meeting design goals, such as high performance, that are the key to commercial competitiveness. Hardware/Software Co-Design covers many aspects of the subject, including methods and examples for designing: (1) general purpose and embedded computing systems based on instruction set processors; (2) telecommunication systems using general purpose digital signal processors as well as application specific instruction set processors; (3) embedded control systems and applications to automotive electronics. The book also surveys the areas of emulation and prototyping systems with field programmable gate array technologies, hardware/software synthesis and verification, and industrial design trends. Most contributions emphasize the design methodology, the requirements and state of the art of computer aided co-design tools, together with current design examples.

This volume contains a collection of papers presented at the NATO Advanced Study Institute on ·Testing and Diagnosis of VLSI and ULSI" held at Villa Olmo, Como (Italy) June 22 -July 3,1987. High Density technologies such as Very-Large Scale Integration (VLSI), Wafer Scale Integration (WSI) and the not-so-far promises of Ultra-Large Scale Integration (ULSI), have exasperated the problema associated with the testing and diagnosis of these devices and systema. Traditional techniques are fast becoming obsolete due to unique requirements such as limited controllability and observability, increasing execution complexity for test vector generation and high cost of fault simulation, to mention just a few. New approaches are imperative to achieve the highly sought goal of the • three months· turn around cycle time for a state-of-the-art computer chip. The importance of testing and diagnostic processes is of primary importance if costs must be kept at acceptable levels. The objective of this NATO-ASI was to present, analyze and discuss the various facets of testing and diagnosis with respect to both theory and practice. The contents of this volume reflect the diversity of approaches currently available to reduce test and diagnosis time. These approaches are described in a concise, yet clear way by renowned experts of the field. Their contributions are aimed at a wide readership: the uninitiated researcher will find the tutorial chapters very rewarding. The expert wiII be introduced to advanced techniques in a very comprehensive manner.