System Level Architecture Exploration for Reconfigurable Systems On Chip

During the last years, a new type of systems-on-chip called, reconfigurable systems-on-chip (RSoCs), has appeared. The design of such systems is a complex task and requires innovative methods to support the development process. In this paper, the authors present two alternative approaches for the efficient architecture exploration of RSoCs, based on SystemC language and on OCAPI-xl environment. The approaches introduced, allow early evaluation of alternative mappings of system´s functionality onto different architectures. As a result, the time consuming iterations from lower design stages are eliminated and reduced design time is achieved. The paper proves the effectiveness of the proposed approaches through three different case studies, borrowed from complementary domains