Motorola announces Design Documentation standard; provides a key to reduced cycle times and increased standardization

IP News

Allows User Time to Understand, Integrate and Verify Intellectual Property Throughout Design Cycle

Austin, Texas - January 17, 2000 - Motorola's (NYSE:MOT) Semiconductor Products Sectors (SPS) today announced the release of their Documentation Standard, developed in close collaboration among the Motorola design community and EDA vendors, as part of their Semiconductor Reuse Standards (SRS) released in December, 1999. The documentation standard outlines the documentation required to help System-on-a-Chip (SoC) design engineers understand, integrate and verify Intellectual Property (IP) when used in SoC designs.

The documentation standard is critical because it bridges the gap between the IP designer and the IP integrator by detailing standardized documents for all IP being used in the complex SoC design process. It defines the content and format of documents required for IP/Virtual Component (IP/VC) blocks and cores, and provides documentation guidelines for SoC devices that use standard IP/VC blocks and cores.

"This is the most comprehensive yet readable specification of what is needed for VC documentation that I've seen to date," said Larry Rosenberg, Chair of VSIA's Technical Committee, acting as an independent consultant to the System-on-a-Chip Design Technology (SoCDT) organization in Austin, TX. "The content and intent of the various documents are clearly specified, including the target audience. The latter point is significant as it allows a complex set of documents to be readable and comprehendible. This precise audience focus is usually neglected."

The intent of the Documentation standard is to provide documents that facilitate reuse of IP/VC blocks and cores, and that can themselves be easily reused, so that it becomes possible to quickly assemble specifications and manuals for SoC devices. When extensive documentation requirements are in place, the time it takes to understand the IP, its basic function, how to interface it to other blocks, and how to integrate and test in a SoC, the design cycle time is reduced, creating decreased time-to-market.

Documentation covers content and format for VC documents. For example, it specifies a set of 10 documents to summarize, create, integrate, use, test and verify blocks and/or actual SoCs. These include rules and guidelines for documentation deliverables, content, appearance, control and organization.

The standard defines the following documents:

- One page summary - a brief description of the block
- Creation Guide - describes how an IP/VC block is designed, e.g.soft IP/VC
- Block User Guide - describes how an IP/VC block functions within a SoC design
- Core User Guide - describes processor functions within an SoC design
- An Integration Guide - provides data required for integrating the block into a SoC design
- Test Guide - defines the test process for the IP/VC block
- Verification Guide - provides the verification process for the IP/VC block
- Analog/Mixed Signal Design Guide - describes how an analog circuit block is designed
- Schematic Diagrams - provides graphic representations of analog designs
- Device User Guide - describes a particular SoC device and summarizes appropriate documentation of embedded IP/VC blocks

"Motorola's SRS is one of the most impressive sets of VC/SoC Standards we've ever seen, in terms of overall vision, completeness, consistency, content and clarity," said Rosenberg, and Larry Cooke, founding Chair and on-going visionary for VSIA's On-Chip-Bus (OCB) Development Working Group (DWG), acting as independent consultants in a visit to Motorola's SPS Austin site. "In some areas, such as Verification, Certification and catalog-search meta data, Motorola is well ahead of VSIA, and we're hoping these documents will be donated as a development seed to VSIA."

The long-term goal of the SRS documentation standard is to become as independent of software and platform as possible so that standard document components can be stored in a database and easily accessed by a variety of applications. The documentation standard can currently be accessed and downloaded from the Motorola Web site at: http://www.motorola.com/semiconductors/srs/

About Motorola As the world's #1 producer of embedded processors, Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector offers multiple DigitalDNA' solutions which enable its customers to create new business opportunities in the consumer, networking and computing, transportation, and wireless communications markets. Motorola's worldwide semiconductor sales were $7.3 billion (USD) in l998. http://www.motorola.com/semiconductors/

Motorola (NYSE:MOT) is a global leader in providing integrated communications solutions and embedded electronic solutions. Sales in 1998 were $29.4 (USD) billion. http://www.motorola.com

# # #

Motorola and DigitalDNA are registered trademarks of Motorola Inc.

Editorial Contacts: Jeff Gorin Motorola (602) 952-3854

Melissa Weiss MS&L Global Technology (805) 230-821

Reader Contact: Beth Gabrick Motorola (512) 342-6432