Design Reuse Vs. Abstraction
By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Semiconductor Engineering
Chip designers have been constantly searching for a hardware description language abstraction level higher than RTL for a few decades. But not everyone is moving in that direction, and there appear to be enough options available through design reuse to forestall that shift for many chipmakers.
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Opinions across the industry vary on this point. “Divide and conquer didn’t kill top-down system design,” said Sergio Marchese, technical marketing, manager at OneSpin Solutions. “In fact, it enables it. Having high-quality IP with a well-defined, configurable, behavior as building blocks is crucial to quickly put together complex systems that will work reliably. As complexity goes from systems to systems of systems, it’s yet to be seen whether the same paradigm works. No alternative is emerging at the moment.”
