Configurable technology impacts SoC design

Traditionally, system-on-chip (SoC) designers have to deal with the rigidity of non-configurable core technology. Conventional core processes have been known to be non-configurable during design or fabrication and cannot be customized for various purposes. These, in turn, have created a pressing need for custom instructions to be included in a processor; configuration of various applications; comprehensive tools to enable software development; and simplified programming in machine language.

With the advent of configurable core processor, significant changes in SoC design are expected to alter these design woes. Reduced development cost, reduced chip redesign, faster time-to-market across various verticals, uniqueness of features and flexibility in design without compromising the system’s features and performance, are among pivotal benefits that will impact SoC design capability. Moreover, SoC designers can make alterations to the CPU architecture to accelerate the device for certain applications, making it difficult to replicate. Today’s configurable core processors are present in various applications. These include wireless computing applications, mobile audio and video players, flash storage devices, digital set-top boxes (STBs), networking appliances, imaging, industrial control, office automation and consumer electronics.

Configurable to edge out non-configurable

According to Semico Research, shipment of configurable core processors reached 1.3 billion and 1.9 billion units in 2005 and 2006, respectively. Unit shipment of configurable core processors in 2007 is estimated at 2.8 billion. Worldwide adoption of configurable technology is growing, with compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45 percent, whereas non-configurable core processors have been showing decline in the past three years, with 8 percent CAGR.

In terms of application segment growths, industrial (14 percent), mobile (13 percent), wired and mobile infrastructure (12 percent) and automotive (11 percent) remain highest for configurable core processors. Non-configurable core processors, meanwhile, top printers (10 percent), storage (10 percent), PCs (8 percent), stationary consumer (7 percent) and mobile consumer (5 percent) as its largest application growth.

Despite heavy presence of leading configurable core companies, such as Tensilica, ARC, Stretch, PACT XPP, IpFlex, Rapport, IBM Cell and Morphing Machines, competition is mainly between the two technologies – configurable and non-configurable, said industry observers.

Although the market space of configurable core is still growing and relatively nascent compared to non-configurable core, the former is expected to edge out the latter as more players introduce configurable technology against non-configurable core companies, such as Intel, Arm and MIPS. Moreover, the market’s shift from PC to mobile and general-purpose processors to application-specific and cost-effective solutions accelerates configurable core adoption.

Challenges in hardware, software design

The present media segment is evolving with respect to features, applications and most importantly – hardware solution. Unlike conventional media solutions such as DSP, FPGA and ASIC, which are designed for relatively narrow applications, the latest configurable hardware solutions are flexible, scalable and cost-effective.

Despite improvements in processor technology, the complex algorithms, protocols and varying applications of the media market, have designers looking to power-efficient hardware solutions that are smaller in terms of gates, rich in features and deliver high-end performance.

The latest trend in this segment is to have configurable processors, reusable arrays and crating customer instruction set as demanded by the applications. These architectures explore data parallelism and archive performance by processing the bulk amount of data. New technologies are usually sourced from Tensilica, Stretch and other configurable core companies.

The consumer electronics, meanwhile, is still driven by convergence in home entertainment, portable and mobile applications. These applications are becoming more and more complex – networked and interconnected – which increases product complexity.

Keeping this in mind, software designers are faced with challenges in development, porting and implementing the software application stack on these platforms. Likewise, software IP providers are experiencing challenges in design, integration, testing and power management.

Media player framework

Successfully supported by different applications, Tata Elxsi’s unique Media Player Framework is flexible, scalable, slim, low in maintenance and portable across different platforms. Suited to DVD players, portable media players (PMPs) and broadcast media players (BMPs), the framework is adoptable to any application segment in digital media.

Salient features of the Media Player Framework include object-oriented and modular design; well-defined interface; standardized and classified error handling mechanism; callback function for response messages; loosely coupled architecture and smaller footprint.

Compared with open source implementation, Tata Elxsi’s Media Player Framework has reusable components, which are suited to broadcast media. These include, DVB-H and AV playback, H264 / MPEG-4/ HE AAC/ MP3 decoder support, MPEG-4 recording, jpeg slide show, playlist management and common file format support.

H264 encoder modular architecture

Another challenge in hardware implementation is to break sequential implementation to modular design. Tata Elxsi developed the H264 Encoder IP that supports base line and main profile. The encoder was also designed to consider – modular architecture, frame/ macro block level implementation per application, clean interfaces, and algorithms that are easy to modify and port, fixed-point implementation.

Featuring Tata Elxsi’s rich set of algorithms, the H264 encoder supports motion estimation, rata control, reference picture selection and MB-type prediction. Moreover, it enables partition of algorithms and blocks in modular architecture. Scalable, the architecture can be applied across configurable processors, multi processors, DSP arrays and FPGA solutions and is already available on different hardware solutions as configurable or general purpose processors.

Conclusion

Like all technology trends, the nascent yet growing configurable core industry continues to center on power efficiency, wherein the bottom line is cost savings, which is always an advantage over competitors, specifically in the semiconductor industry. The changing needs of the customers have to be fulfilled with the most cost-effective solutions without compromising performance, which results in immense opportunities to enter into the configurable core business.

Tata Elxsi has rich set of AV codec and media solutions which are designed keeping in view the dynamically changing design of hardware platforms. The modular design approach is applied for software IP like AV codecs to the complete Media Player Framework. This gives advantage of faster time-to-market and scalability.

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