On core and more: a design perspective for systems-on-a-chip

In this survey, key drivers in design methodology are provided that enable successful design of systems-on-a-chip for the highly competitive telecommunications market. Main components of a design environment are described that fulfill the requirements of today´s system design: efficient verification by means of fast simulation, integration of intellectual property, support of HW/SW co-design by means of a generic machine description language, generation of dedicated hardware blocks for high speed applications, and the link from system level performance evaluation to implementations in hardware and software.