DSP DESIGN TOOL REQUIREMENTS FOR EMBEDDED SYSTEMS - A TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRIAL PERSPECTIVE

This paper describes the trends in DSP (Digital Signal Processing) for telecommunications design at Bell Northern Research (BNR)' and the to ols needed to address them. The paper is in three parts: First, we pre sent the results of a three month survey of DSP design practices at BN R. We briefly describe the characteristics of the designs, as well as the DSP design tools used. However, the emphasis is on the main bottle necks in the design process, and the tools required to address them in the future. Then, we present a proposal for a next generation DSP des ign environment for telecommunication applications, based on the surve y results. Particular emphasis will be given to code generation, syste m-level simulation, and behavioral synthesis, the three most requested design tools. Finally, we provide a description of FlexWare, an embed ded software development system which is being developed internally. T his system addresses one important aspect of this next generation envi ronment, namely design tools for application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIP). FlexWare is composed of two main components: CodeSy n, a retargetable microcode synthesis system; and Insulin, a VHDL-base d instruction set simulation system.