An Open Tool Integration Environment for Efficient Design of Embedded Systems in Wireless Communications

The design of embedded computer systems for modern wireless communication devices finds itself under increasing technological and commercial pressures. This design crisis is fueled by an unrelenting growth in algorithmic complexity, which by far outpaces the growth in design productivity, thus making it increasingly difficult to design entire embed- ded systems. On the other hand, the commercial reality in the wireless communications sector dictates ever shortening design cycles to achieve quicker time to market. This thesis examines the traditional design process of embedded systems for wireless communications, identifies the key bottlenecks which inhibit increased design productiv- ity, and proposes the Open Tool Integration Environment (OTIE) as an effective means of removing these bottlenecks. A flexible, scalable, robust, and secure implementation of OTIE is presented, based on a Single System Description (SSD providing a single, central repository for all refinement information in the design process. The presented implementation also includes proof-of-concept implementations of System Description Interfaces (SDIs), visualizers, as well as two complete and fully functional tool chains. The first of the tool chains is used for virtual prototyping and demonstrates the ability of OTIE to include both commercial and academic Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools seamlessly into a complete design flow. The ability of OTIE to increase design productivity through this increased automation is demonstrated, resulting in savings in the order of thousands of person-hours. Also, the virtual prototyping tool chain demonstrates the ability of OTIE to automate both the design and verification flows. The second tool flow, flexify, is a toolset dedicated to automating the floating-point to fixed-point conversion, a design step which has not been automated previously. The incorporation of flexify demonstrates the ability of OTIE to support new and emerging EDA tools as they become available in the future.