ECE 598 BL

Design & Synthesis for SOCs

Fall 2007


Instructor

Deming Chen (dchen AT uiuc.edu)

Office Hours:  Thu 2-3PM or appointments by email (CSL-410)

http://www.ece.uiuc.edu/faculty/faculty.asp?dchen

 

Teaching Assistant

Alex Papakonstantinou (apapako2 AT uiuc.edu)
Office Hours: Wed 12-2PM or appointments by email (CSL-421)

 

Credits

4 hours

 

Prerequisites

ECE 425 (or equivalent), ECE 391 (or equivalent)

 

Lectures

Tue, Thu: 11:00 am - 12:20 pm at DCL-1310

 

General Description

System-on-a-chip (SOC) is an idea of integrating all components of a computer system into a single chip. SOC designs usually consume less power and have a lower cost and higher reliability than the multi-chip systems that they replace. Gartner regards them as the most important type of semiconductor device since the development of the microprocessor. An important enabler for the design of SOCs is the availability of semiconductor intellectual property (IP), which allows a SOC designer to include predefined circuitries, cutting development cycle while increasing product functionality, performance and quality. The implementation of these systems of both hardware and software components and the interaction between hardware and software is an essential part of the design. This course will cover SOC topics on design process, modeling and analysis, design methodology and platform, hardware/software co-design, behavioral synthesis, embedded software, verification, and design space exploration. With a focus on learning of the current SOC design and research topics, students are given opportunities to carry out class projects based on their own interest. Class projects can include software/hardware partitioning, hardware implementation of video compression algorithms, and synthesis for application specific instruction set processors (ASIP). Platform FPGA boards and digital cameras are provided to students to prototype, test, and evaluate their SOC designs.

 

Textbooks

v     Class Notes

 

Supplementary Materials

v     G. De Micheli, R. Ernst, and W. Wolf, eds., Readings in Hardware/Software Co-Design, Morgan Kaufmann, 2001.

v     A. Jerraya and W. Wolf, eds., Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chips, Morgan Kaufmann, 2004.

v     F. Vahid and T. Givargis, Embedded System Design: A Unified Hardware/Software Introduction, Wiley, 2002.

v     Grant Martin and Henry Chang, Winning the SoC Revolution: Experiences in Real Design, Kluwer, 2003

v     Related Research Papers

 

Grading

Machine Problems (20%); Homework (15%); Midterm (20%); Class project, presentation, and final report (40%); Class participation (5%)