EDA Tech Forum

Electronic system level (ESL) design is moving to a new stage in its development, advancing from a proof-of-concept environment to one that is seeing its adoption and deployment at the forefront of design.

The article terms this shift ‘ESL 2.0’. The reason for this goes beyond mere marketing hype. Inherent in the transition defined above is the fact that ESL is, as is often the case with a 2.0-type advance, undergoing a change more in how it is used rather than in terms of the fundamental technologies of which it is composed.

Given the increasing challenges presented by multi-core design, ESL 2.0 is therefore defined as a second generation of ESL solutions that enable the efficient design and development of processor-centric, software-heavy products with complex interconnects and memory architectures.

This article sets out the evidence for saying that an on-going transition to ESL 2.0 world is well under way and examines the forces behind it. It also provides examples of how ESL technologies are now influencing the way in which engineers approach new designs and how companies are using them for new product development, adapting and improving both their own internal design flows and also their relationships with end-customers.