Slide 16 of 46
Notes:
All of these applications are examples of what is referred to today as a System on a Chip. But what is a System on a Chip?
A System-on-a-Chip (SOC) is defined as a combination of predefined hardware modules and associated software realized as a single chip.
We assume the capability of such SOC’s tracks the exponential growth available in transistors and interconnect and that such systems must interoperate efficiently with off-chip components and subsystems.
To provide a predictable and highly-leveraged software base, it will also be necessary that such SOC designs support a uniform and relatively standard set of application programming interfaces (APIs). This software infrastructural issue is at least as important than many of the hardware-related issues in SOC and is the least well-addressed in today’s SOC world, as described later.
