SoC Design Methodology and Indoor Location/Tracking System

Implementation

Chihhao Chao2008.1.22

What is SoC (System-on-Chip)?• Complex IC that integrates the major functional elements of a

complete end-product into a single chip or chipset

• The SoC design typically incorporates – Programmable processor– On-chip memory– HW accelerators – Peripheral interfaces– Embedded software

Source: “Surviving the SoC revolution – A Guide to Platform-based Design,” Henry Chang et al, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999

IP design vs. SoC design

• Specific function unit, hardware accelerator,

• Hardware optimization (Time/Area/Power)

• Algorithm verification skill, Architecture design skill, Synthesis skill, APR skill

• Application on platform, system architecture, SW design, HW design

• System integration and optimization• Platform-based design skill, Profiling

skill, SW optimization/accelerating skill, System view of IP design, FPGA design skill

Cell-based Design Flow:IP/IC Design

e.g. DCT/IDCT Processor

DRU Transpose Memory

BDEG Matrix Vector Multiplier

ACF Matrix Vector Multiplier

DRU

IP/IC

SoC Design Methodology:SoC Design, HW/SW Co-Design

e.g. ARM-based Multimedia System

ARM uP

SRAM

MPEGCodec

DSP

Co-Processor

USB SD UART IO

Bus Bridge

BUS

BUS

SoC

SoC design methodology

• SW prototyping– Build pure-software demo system on given platform,

function correct

• Profiling– Fit target timing spec, performance examination

• System Partition– Design which part needs hardware acceleration

• HW/SW co-design– SW: driver design, code optimization– HW: IP design (ASIC/FPGA design flow)

Indoor location/tracking System• Goal

– Locate/Track human position in indoor environment.

• Localization/Tracking by Radio Signal Strength (RSS)– By RSS attenuation +

Radio Fingerprint

• Problem– Large RSS variation– Non-Gaussian noise– Non-linear motion of tracking

target

Beacon 3

Beacon 1

Beacon 2 Unknown 2

Unknown 1

indoor

indoor

What is our job?• 適用於異質無線網路環境之前瞻MoIP 手持裝置 SoC 設計– NSC Project

(2005~2008)

• Design a SoC for assisting:– Elder-care/

Children-care/Hospital

– Blind pedestrian guidance

B3 B4B2 B5 B6B1

Radio fingerprint• Preprocessing for model-based estimation subsystem

– Search radio fingerprint database: 3-nearest vector set searching – Interpolate

Particle filter

• A powerful mathematical tool for non-linear model / non-Gaussian noise estimation problem

• A sequential Monte Carlo method– A statistical filter– Iteratively estimate PDF of target

• Widely used in– RSSI location, Robot SLAM, Machine learning, Object recognition in

image/video

t

Observed signal 1

t

Observed signal 2

Particle Filter

t

Estimation

Exact Value

Probability Density Function

Exact Value

)(xp

tx

set of n particles Xt

Display subsystem• Demo-oriented subsystem• Good Practice for SoC Design Methodology• SW: GUI design for embedded system• HW: Display accelerator, image scaling algorithm

Project requirement

• We will focus on prototyping a demo system– Display subsystem of location/tracking SoC

• Required skill– C or C++ coding (for SW)– Verilog RTL coding (for HW)

What you will learn?

• SoC design methodology– Platform-based design skill, Profiling skill, SW

optimization/accelerating skill, System view of IP design, • FPGA design skill• Image scaling algorithms• GUI design experience

• This will help a lot for your lab-oriented courses in NTUEE.