Systems-on-chip Needs for Embedded Software Development

Increasingly, today's system-level chips include heterogeneous computing cores which can be general-purpose, signal or network processors. The function of the chip heavily depends on the software created for these processor cores. Therefore, all the concerns of traditional hardware architects or designers will fall into the responsibility of embedded software developers: real-time constraints, low-power requirements, and how to split a series of tasks into various widely different processors.Just as the processor core is integrated into the chip, software development must be integrated into the chip development flow. The implications in terms of design flow and embedded software development tools will be examined based on some actual SoC examples. The trends in the responsibilities and skills of the hardware and software developers will be analyzed and some general directions will be proposed.