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INTRODUCTION

This book is concerned with building Systems -on-Chips for real-time systems,
where processing typically takes place on streaming data. Many of the applications
are in the area of signal processing systems, and so it is appropriate that we start
with a chapter devoted to exploring the issues associated with building such systems
using SOC concepts.
There are three sections in this chapter. The first section, ''System on Chip: The
Challenge" by Wael Badawy of the University of Calgary, provides an overview of
the challenges and opportunities associated with the design of circuits for real-time
applications where the number of logic gates is in excess of 10 million. In parti:ular,
this section deals with the paradigm shift that is occurring from the current cell
library driven application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design to SoC design
techniques based on reusable intellectual property.
The second section, "Electronic Product Innovation Using Direct Mapped Signal
Processing SoC Cores" by John McCanny of the Queen's University of Belfast and
Amphion Semiconductor Inc., highlights the need to look beyond the use of
programmable DSP processors to implement high perforrnanc e signal processing
applications at SoC densities. Current generations of many electronics products (e.g.
2G cell phones, set-top-boxes) incorporate increasing levels of signal processing
functionality. In the main, this has been provided by and led to the development of
increasingly sophisticated families of programmable DSP processors. Although this
approach has been very successful in the past, user demand for new devices and
enhanced functionality, flexibility and portability (e.g. wireless PDAs, set-top-
boxes, 3G wireless handsets, Wireless LAN, digital VCR's etc.) is requiring system
performance where the reliance on the programmable DSP solution will be
increasingly inadequate. This section looks at alternative techniques, based on high
performance s~nal processing intellectual property (IP) blocks, that can be tailored
to a variety of performance requirements.
The final section, "System on Chip Implementation of Signal Processors" by
Earl Swartzlander Jr., of the University of Texas at Austin, looks at the evolution of
the building of special purpose signal processors and the advantages that SoC
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densities bring to the increase in performance of these systems. This section

develops on the theme that signal processing systems are exceIlent candidates for
implementation via System-on-Chip design. This is due to the high throughput and
low power demands of signal processing systems and the weB-structured nature of
the algorithms. Realizing a complete system on a single chip eliminates many chip-
to-chip connections that are required for conventional implementations. Replacing a
chip-to-chip connection with a connection that stays on chip reduces the capacitive
load by at least two orders of magnitude. Since the power consumption of a driver
circuit varies in direct proportion with the capacitive load (at a fixed speed), the SoC
design wiB have much lower power consumption than the conventional version,
which provides the potential to achieve high throughput, smaIl size, and low power
for dedicated signal processing systems.