Traditional ASIP Design Methodology

In the current technical environment, ASIPs and the necessary software development tools are mostly designed manually, with very little automation [27]. However, this results in a long, labor-intensive process requiring highly skilled engineers with specialized know-how — a very scarce resource. Most of today’s processor design is conducted by embedded processor (EP) and integrated circuit (IC) vendors using a variety of development tools from different sources, typically lacking a well-integrated and unified approach. Engineers design the architecture, simulate it in software, design software for the target application, and integrate the architecture into the system. Each step of this process requires its own design tools and is often carried out by a separate team of developers. As a result, design engineers rarely have the tools nor the time to explore architectural alternatives to find the best solution for their target applications.