Hardware/Software integration: Closing the gap

Introduction In recent years, system integration associated with System on Chip (SoC) design has grown at a rapid rate and continues to drive the semiconductor design market. Although this growth has been beneficial for the design community, the sophisticated and complex manufacturing requirements of next generation devices have increased the cost of ASIC and ASSP development. Product implementation of complex, low-power designs requires early integration of various hardware features with corresponding firmware onto one silicon device. The reduced lifespan of current products have condensed SoC development cycles and have made the SoC verification and in-system validation process an arduous task. The bulk of time spent during the product development cycle of SoCs is often in hardware/software integration and has brought in-system validation to the forefront of this extensive process.