Design methodology for microcore-based mixed-signal ASICs

This paper presents key concepts of our methodology to design microcore-based mixed-signal ASICs of high complexity. we introduce two sotware-tools for verification and tecs, both of which are designed to increase the effectivness of the development-phase. The MicroDebugger provides a higher-level interface to commonly used simulators for digital circuits and simplifies development of microcontroller components. It eases decisions of partitioning between hardware and software and supports software development on a target system before having silicon. The ScanDebugger maintains similar functionality on the prototype chip and has the ability to perform engineering tests as well as in-circuit-emulation sessions to do software development directly on the target system.