A search and retrieval tool to enable system design through intellectual property reuse

In this paper, we describe a tool developed under the DARPA¹ sponsorship in the Systems On Chip Created using Extended Requirements language (SOCCER) program to search and retrieve Intellectual Property (IF) for reuse in a mixed-signal electronic system design. Given system requirements specified formally as preconditions, postconditions, and constraints, the tool searches a database of component specifications for existing IP and then provides a list of IP components that completely or partially match the system specification as output. The system requirements are specified using an extended VSPEC, a formal interface specification language developed to specify digital systems under the sponsorship of the Air Force in the CEENSS program and then later extended under the SOCCER program to specify analog and mixed-signal systems as VSPEC-AMS. In addition, the SOCCER tool employs an extended REBOUND, a search and retrieval tool originally developed under the DARPA RASSP program and then extended for analog and mixed-signal systems under the SOCCER program. In this paper, we provide a tool overview and vision, describe its background present extensions developed under the SOCCER program and then illustrate the workings of the tool with an example. SOCCER is a Phase I STIR program that began in June of 1997 and has established the proof-of-concept for the tool described above. In addition, SOCCER has the potential to leverage the AF sponsored VHDL-AMS Synthesis Environment (VASE) program to go from concept (system requirements) to implementation (VHDL-AIMS behavior which could be synthesized using the VASE tool under development)