SystemC as a Tool for Product Definition
David MacAdam, Integrated Device Technology, USA

The benefits of SystemC have been explored from verification, architecture and design perspectives. All of these are predicated on the existence of a mandate, a product specification, a marketing requirement, etc. Our team used SystemC to develop the original product specification in close collaboration with the product marketing team. Moving SystemC further up in the product lifecycle greatly benefited the product specification effort by allowing our transaction-level exploratory architecture effort to be closely tied to customer and market requirements.

Having SystemC integrated from product inception led to a more detailed product specification with less ambiguity than traditional efforts. This clarity has improved convergence between the design team and the marketing/architecture team and increased confidence in the final mandate.

This presentation outlines how this new methodology evolved during the development of the product specification for a next generation switch module. Specifically it will discuss unique requirements on the SystemC model testbench to evaluate architectural elements from both an engineering and marketing perspective. In addition it will elaborate on the benefits a combined marketing/engineering effort provided to the design team.