Machine code: the ones and zeroes are an abstract representation of the electromagnetic signals flowing through the wires and computer chips. Assembler: hides away the machine code, allowing a ...

The concept of applying a higher level of design abstraction to creative and engineering processes is so closely familiar that we probably take it for granted. From NC machines to SQL database systems ...

An increasing reliance on commercial and re-used IP and more emphasis placed on software development is adding even more pressure onto semiconductor design teams to figure out the benefits and ...

Without abstraction, advances in semiconductor design would have stalled decades ago and circuits would remain about the same size as analog blocks. No new abstractions have emerged since the 1990s ...

With the advent of advanced HDLs – such as SystemVerilog – that provide new and powerful language constructs, current hardware modeling styles can now be enhanced both in terms of abstraction level ...

As discussed in Part 1, this article proposes four steps to raise the abstraction level of current Verilog HDL designs and provide a phase wise approach to migrate to SystemVerilog. In Part 1 we ...