Companies using platform based design methodology??

[hpinmax]

anyone knows about any company using the platform based design methodology to develop their products?

If let me know what products have been developed with the methodology, it'd be grateful.

plz, give me a list as many as possible..

Thanks

 

[modelsim62c]

What do you mean by "platform" methodology? Are you talking about chip-design with standard-cell ASIC?

If so, then most companies go with the foundry's recommendation. For example, TSMC has a 'reference design flow' for all its major logic process-nodes (130nm, 90nm, 65nm, etc.) The reference-design flow includes special step-by-step instructions for synthesizing the netlist, running milestone checks (LINT, equivalency, design-for-test, timing, clock-skew, etc.), and the recommended ways to deal with implementation issues. For example, if you have a signal-intergrity issue, the reference design flow recommends which tools to use, to fix the SI issue.

It has been a long time since I looked at that stuff. Customers are not REQUIRED to follow the reference-flow exactly, and many don't. But your question is a million dollar question, because a full front-end to back-end setup requires huge investment in tools, engineer resources, and time. It's not like a company will get the reference design manual, buy all the tools tomorow, and then tape-out a working chip the following day. (If only it were that easy...)

 

[hpinmax]

Actually, what I mean is chip-design with a set of IPs and standard bus such as AMBA, as base references to develop application quickly rather than standard cell, though they are quite similar.
Anyway, your information is also very useful for me... Thanks a lot
p.s Where can I find any reference design flow for specific manufaturer such as TSMC?

 

[modelsim62c]

Actually, what I mean is chip-design with a set of IPs and standard bus such as AMBA,

WHA?!?! I answered the WRONG question, but you were kind enough to give me help points

In general, since the foundries "write the book" on their own fabrication products, you have to request the material directly from them. Most require you to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) with them. And some (TSMC in particular) will do a background check, mainly to screen out corporate espionage attempts and non-serious window-shoppers.

TSMC's reference flow is available under contract, directly from TSMC. I think you can get part of it (the front-end guide) through a Synopsys account (assuming you are a current customer)

As for your original question, regarding embedded design, "platform design" varies from vendor to vendor. ARM/Synopsys has some kind of devkit for generating preconfigured IP-blocks -- but none of it comes close to touching the integration/managed build-environment of XilinxEDK/AlteraSOPC. Of course, ASIC environments are much more open-ended, and IPs come from multiple vendors (not just one), so YOU are left with micro-managing a lot of low-level details. Ifyou've ever used Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS/EDK) or Altera SOPC-II, then you will be shocked at how backwards and primitive embedded-CPU stuff is on ASICs -- I mean it's practically stoneage.

I'm sorry if this is vague -- SoC stuff isn't my specialty, so you might want to resbumit your question to the microcontroller board.