Searching Extended IP-XACT Components for SoC Design Based on Requirements Similarity

Abstract

To counter today's rising complexity in system-on-chip (SoC) design intellectual property (IP) components are reused. These IP components are models of system parts (e.g., CPU, memory, bus) used in SoC design. In IP libraries many different of such predesigned components are available. However, finding and selecting functionally suitable ones is difficult and laborious. Additionally, certain nonfunctional constraints need to be considered when searching for IP. However, these additional constraints such as power dissipation, performance and verification status are rarely considered in currently available IP representation formats. This paper introduces our innovative approach for searching suitable components in the IP library. Therefore, IP-XACT, a common IP representation format, is extended with relevant information. The IP represented in this way is managed in a library which utilizes our novel selection process taking similarities between system and component requirements into account. The result is a ranking of the best-suited components for reuse in the current system-under-design. To demonstrate our approach a case study is performed on a SoC. With our methodology a ranking of components matching the system's requirements and constraints is generated.