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Reconfigurable System Prototyping: A Fast Solution for Functional Verification Programmable products are making possible reconfigurable hardware that speeds subjective testing. by Amr Mohsen

The last few years have seen a tremendous increase in the complexity of system designs. On the design creation side, two dominant factors have made this trend possible: first, the widespread adoption of top-down design methodologies based on high-level design languages, synthesis, and static timing analysis; and second, design reuse to manage the complexity of new circuits.

Today, this quantum progress in design creation productivity hasn't been met by a commensurate step in verification. The new electronic systems developed to serve the converging computer, communications, and consumer ("3C") markets require subjective quality testing. Simulation simply falls short when subjective testing of real-world system interfaces is the key to proving design concepts. Consequently, functional verification has become a bottleneck in the overall design cycle. The EDA suppliers need to deliver a new solution that addresses this new verification requirement.

Recent advances in programmable technologies and products--such as FPGAs, field-programmable interconnect components (FPICs), and field-programmable circuit boards (FPCBs)--have enabled designers to create a new class of open-architecture reconfigurable hardware that is driven by a high-level hardware design description. The open architecture and reconfigurability of this new class of hardware allow designers to build system prototypes quickly by assembling all the system components in a completely configurable and observable environment. The prototype implements the new custom logic in FPGAs that has been optimally selected by the system designer. It also allows easy integration of any standard ICs, I/O interfaces, and bonded-out cores that will be employed in the final design, thereby complementing methodologies based on design reuse.

The new, faster, and higher-density FPGAs introduced recently have extended the operating speed and capacity of the open-architecture rapid-prototyping solutions built with reconfigurable hardware. Reconfigurable system-prototyping opportunities that didn't exist a few months ago are being created by allowing natural partitions of 40,000-gate blocks to be directly synthesized into each FPGA. This eliminates many of the complex partitioning issues that increase the number of FPGAs and reduce the operating speed. A reconfigurable system-prototyping solution leveraging the latest FPGAs and allowing for easy integration of off-the-shelf components will deliver speeds in the range of 20 to 40 MHz. For many applications in the converging 3C markets, this solution overcomes the performance shortcomings of simulation and places system prototyping above the threshold speed at which subjective testing can be achieved.

As a result, rapid system prototyping with reconfigurable hardware is emerging as a new paradigm that enables the designers to verify complex electronic systems in a real-world environment. This solution combines the benefits of simulation with those of hardware prototypes. Thereby, reconfigurable system prototyping allows designers to explore the design concepts; verify the hardware design; and complete the development, integration, and testing of the system firmware and software. It provides the means to verify complex system designs in a real-time environment, resulting in higher-quality subjective testing and shortening the time to market.

Amr Mohsen is president and CEO of Aptix Corp. (San Jose).

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integrated system design  August 1997