The Technology Behind the Software

The Typical digital design sequence...

Given a complex hardware circuit to be designed, Figure 1 shows the typical sequence of steps used in the design process.

First, a specification must be created for the target circuit. This circuit specification can take several forms, including a lengthy English description of the desired operation of the circuit or a set of scenarios describing the operation of the desired circuit in various situations.

Next, the circuit designer should produce a high-level algorithmic description of a circuit that can satisfy the specifications stated in Step 1.

From this algorithmic description, the circuit designer then typically produces HDL (hardware description language), the most common of which are VHDL and Verilog) code for the circuit. The HDL code can be simulated to verify correct functional operation. After functional verification, EDA (electronic design automation) tools exist to "synthesize" the detailed hardware circuitry from the HDL code, provided that the HDL code has been written in a sufficiently precise and unambiguous form.

Next, the circuit can be simulated again to verify the correct timing as well as functional behavior of the circuit. Finally, the circuit must be "mapped to" or implemented on the target hardware platform, which can be an FPGA, ASIC, or printed circuit board.

...depicted graphically for higher productivity:



Figure 1: The digital logic hardware circuit design process

Exsedia's suite of software is specifically designed to aid hardware designers during the high-level system design phase.
Given the increasingly large and complex hardware circuits being designed today, this is an important design phase that has been largely ignored by previous EDA tool vendors

Using Exsedia's tools, circuit designers can follow the 2a-2b-2c path in the design process shown in Figure 1. By following this design path, the high-level system design process can be mostly automated.
This type of design automation can result in significantly higher design productivity

In addition, engineers who are not experienced in digital logic hardware design, but still know how to produce working software code, can use their software expertise to design and implement working digital logic hardware.

This can be done through the use of ASM (algorithmic state machine) modeling.