Sunday, March 3, 2013

Component Based Design

We've been working with beta versions of Vivado IP Integrator from Xilinx. Taken at baseline, this is a fine way to compose component assemblies of IP. Out of the box, graphically, it feels like a grown-up System Generator for the masses, not just for DSP.

The choice of an industry standard for component metadata, IP-XACT, helps strengthen the value-proposition. (Disclosure: We are observers on the Accellera Technical Committee).

Perhaps our greatest excitement for this technology is the ability to package our own and our client's IP components. In this manner, they too become first-class citizens in an IP catalog standing alongside the IP catalogs of others.

We would be careful about using phrases like "Correct by Construction" or "Plug and Play". But the fact is that well-defined interfaces with strong guards and type-checking help the situation.