• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.869-872
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• 2005

In this paper we present a switch wrapper for an AMBA AXI, which is an efficient on-chip-network interface compared to bus-based interfaces in a multiprocessor SoC. The AXI uses an idea of NoC to provide the increasing demands on communication bandwidth within a single chip. A switch wrapper for AXI is located between a interconnection network and two IPs connecting them together. It carries out a mode of routing to interconnection network and executes protocol conversions to provide compatibility in IP reuse. A switch wrapper consists of a direct router, AHB-AXI converters, interface modules and a controller modules. We propose the design of a all-in-one type switch wrapper.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.24-31
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• 2007

Up to date, a lot of bus protocol and bus architecture are released though most of them are based on the shared bus architecture and inherit the limitation of performance. SNP (SoC Network Protocol), and hence, SNA (SoC Network Architecture) which are high performance on-chip-bus protocol and architecture, respectively, have been proposed to solve the problems of the conventional shared bus. We refine the SNA specification and improve the performance and functionality. The performance of the SNA is improved by supporting simultaneous routing for bus request of multiple masters. The internal routing logic is also improved so that the gate count is decreased. The proposed SNA employs XSNP (extended SNP) that supports almost perfect compatibility with AMBA AHB protocol without performance degradation. The hardware complexity of the improved SNA is not increased much by optimizing the current routing logic. The improved SNA works for IPs with the original SNP at its best performance. In addition, it can also replace the AMBA AHB or interconnect matrix of a system, and it guarantees simultaneous multiple channels. That is, the existing AMBA system can show much improved performance by replacing the AHB or the interconnect matrix with the SNA. Thanks to the small number of interconnection wires, the SNA can be used for the off-chip bus system, too. We verify the performance and function of the proposed SNA and XSNP simulation and emulation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.919-921
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• 2004

최근 임베디드 시스템 설계에서 저전력 소모와 SoC가 주된 관심사가 되면서, ARM 프로세서와 AMBA 버스가 각광을 받고 있다. AMBA 버스가 고속 모듈에 대해서는 장점을 지니지만. 저속 모듈과의 인터페이스에는 많은 제약이 따른다. 따라서 속도가 서로 다른 이종 모듈간에 속도 보상을 위한 bridge 가 필요하다. 이러한 용도로 APB bridge가 표준으로 자리 매김하고 있지만, 속도가 고정되어 있기 때문에 융통성이 배제된다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 단정을 보완하기 위해, 구조가 간단하고 구현이 쉬운 ISA 방식의 bridge를 제안하여, 많은 주변장치들을 손쉽게 AHB Slave로 인터페이스 할 수 있게 만든다.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.131.1-131
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• 2001

At the present time, multimedia chip, internet application, and network equipment is designed by using ARM core. Because it has a good debugging, software compiler and needed low power. We must process a data coding to send a multimedia data by real time. So need to connect software and hardware algorithm. In this research, We design interface for ARM9/AMBA based board using VHDL for these function implementation. The board is used the ARM company´s ARM940T for software function implementation and Xilinx company´s Virtex E2000 for hardware function algorithm. The various hardware algorithm (ME,ME,DCT) block for performance can be implemented on this system.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.132-140
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• 2002

This paper presents an ARM-based SOC bus transaction verification IP and the usage experiences in SOC designs. The verification IP is an AMBA AHB protocol checker, which captures legal AHB transactions in FSM-style signal sequence checking routines. This checker can be considered as a reusable verification IP since it does not change unless the bus protocol changes. Our AHB protocol checker is designed to be scalable to any number of AHB masters and reusable for various AMBA-based SOC designs. The keys to the scalability and the reusability are Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), virtual port, and bind operation. This paper describes how OOP, virtual port, and bind features are used to implement AHB protocol checker. Using the AHB protocol checker, an AHB simulation monitor is constructed. The monitor checks the legal bus arbitration and detects the first cycle of an AHB transaction. Then it calls AHB protocol checker to check the expected AHB signal sequences. We integrate the AHB bus monitor into Verilog simulation environment to replace time-consuming visual waveform inspection, and it allows us to find design bugs quickly. This paper also discusses AMBA AHB bus transaction coverage metrics and AHB transaction coverage analysis. Test programs for five AHB masters of an SOC, four channel DMAs and a host interface unit are executed and transaction coverage for DMA verification is collected during simulation. These coverage results can be used to determine the weak point of test programs in terms of the number of bus transactions occurred and guide to improve the quality of the test programs. Also, the coverage results can be used to obtain bus utilization statistics since the bus cycles occupied by each AHB master can be obtained.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea CI
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.214-221
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• 2003

This paper shows an implementation of video codec (coder/decoder) on an embedded system. The video codec supports both H.261 and H.263 standards. For efficient real-time processing, the video codec is partitioned into a software module and a hardware module. Both modules are codesigned on an embedded system. The software module is processed on a real-time operating system and a RISC processor. It cooperates with the hardware module to compress and decompress images in real time. AMBA (Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture) AHB (Advanced High-performance Bus) is used as the system bus. The hardware module works both as AHB masters and as AHB slaves. The encoder part of the hardware module operates in a pipelines mode to compress images in real time. The video codec compresses 15 CIF frames and simultaneously decompresses 15 CIF frames in a second according to H.261 or H.263 standard at 33 MHz frequency.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.10 no.1 s.18
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• pp.22-29
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• 2006

In this paper, we present the efficient way of SDRAM accessing through the DMA(Direct Memory Access) when a microprocessor and peripheral blocks are sharing a SDRAM. The microprocessor is able to access a memory through the AMBA which is the system bus provided by ARM Corporation and DMAs are able to access a memory through their own bus. Peripheral block's reading and writing on the SDRAM memory are realized by the intermediate DMA in order to minimize times of access and addressing the memory. While the microprocessor doesn‘t access to the SDRAM aproaching other registers or occurring a hit signal for fetching program or data, the DMAs may read/write the data in the SDRAM without an interference of the AMBA. This way increases the efficient of the system and performance is more by 16.8%.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea TC
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.1-5
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• 2011

We present the implementation of MAC system for MBOA UWB SoC. The implemented MBOA MAC algorithm is not master control mechanism, but distributed network mechanism. Therefore, mesh network can be easily constructed because MAC consists of distributed network and administrates network. The ARM926EJ with cache is adopted for high performnace and AMBA bus is applied for system design and reuse. In addition, the system operating clock management algorithm is implemented for low power consumption. The dedicated DMA for MAC is designed between the system memory buffer and MAC hardware, and the dedicated DMA for USB 2.0 is also implemented between system memory buffer and host for high data transaction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2013.10a
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• pp.649-652
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• 2013

LEON3 is a 32-bit synthesisable processor based on the SPARC V8. It can be connected to AMBA 2.0 bus and has a 7-stage pipeline, IEEE-754 FPU and 256[KB] cache. It can be easily implemented using FPGA and used for a SoC design. DSU which comes with LEON3 can be used to control and monitor the operation of LEON3. And DSU makes it easy to set a debugging environment for the development of both hardware and software for an embedded systems based on LEON3. This paper presents the summary of the development of LEON3 monitoring software.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.30 no.2B
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• pp.1-10
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• 2005

TCP/IP protocols have been implemented in software program running on CPU in end systems. As the increased demand of fast protocol processing, it is required to implement the protocols in hardware, and Host Interface is responsible for communication between external CPU and the hardware blocks of TCP/IP implementation. The Host Interface follows AMBA AHB specification for the communication with external world. For control flow, the Host Interface behaves as a slave of AMBA AHB. Using internal Command/status Registers, the Host Interface receives commands from CPU and transfers hardware status and header information to CPU. On the other hand, the Host Interface behaves as a master for data flow. Data flow has two directions, Receive Flow and Transmit Flow. In Receive Flow, using internal RxFIFO, the Host Interface reads data from UDP FIFO or TCP buffer and transfers data to external RAM for CPU to read. For Transmit Flow, the Host Interface reads data from external RAM and transfers data to UDP buffer or TCP buffer through internal TxFIFO. TCP/IP hardware blocks generate packets using the data and transmit. Buffer Descriptor is one of the Command/Status Registers, and the information stored in Buffer Descriptor is used for external RAM access. Several testcases are designed to verify TCP/IP functions. The Host Interface is synthesized using the 0.18 micron technology, and it results in 173 K gates including the Command/status Registers and internal FIFOs.