Reason #9 to Customize a Processor Core: Become More Productive

Written by Paula Jones May 14, 2010 Hits: 282 Favorites

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Sure, you could design your own processor or DSP. Or design your accelerator functions in RTL. But the design cycle usually takes over a year, and that figure might not include all the time needed to design the matching software tool chain – the compiler, debugger, instruction set simulator, etc. – if you’re designing a processor. And there’s no guarantee that the exact processor specification or RTL design you pick to implement is the best one.

Instead, you can use a customizable processor and compare and contrast different alternatives to pick the best architecture. Then, when you’ve meet your performance/area/power goals, you can trust Tensilica’s automated process of generating a matching complete software tool chain for the exact processor you’ve designed. Hundreds of designs have been completed this way, and Tensilica guarantees that the software tools, as well as the processor, are correct by construction.

The engineering manpower needed to develop and verify custom RTL acceleration hardware is greatly reduced. A processor-centric ASIC design approach permits graceful software-based project-schedule recovery when (never if) a bug is discovered. And the time-consuming RTL verification cycle is removed. You just need to verify that the processor is doing what you think you asked it to do, rather than the standard hardwired RTL verification challenges.

Find out more by looking at the white paper: "The What, Why & How of Configurable Processors."

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Written by :

Paula Jones