An automated infrastructure for real-time monitoring of multi-core Systems-on-Chip

Requirements for rapid turnaround development of complex multi-core Systems-on-Chip nowadays have advanced to the level at which a number of different in principle validation techniques have to be performed in short time. Quite common are hybrids of passive debugging of Systems-on-Chip and event-driven active verification. On top of these, we present a novel highly flexible verification infrastructure, in which parameters of monitoring can be accessible in real-time while the measurement itself is being performed. Instead of simply observing components under development, the proposed infrastructure enables the designer to interact, monitor and adjust in real-time system parameters or application software. This paper explores different microarchitecture alternatives to efficiently support flexible real-time monitoring via hardware configurable monitors which can provide abstractions of the information. A quantitative evaluation of the proposed methodology on a system-on-FPGA provides results that can serve as guidelines for system-level designers, proving the need for flexible and at the same time efficient filters for real-time monitors inside complex multi-core SoCs.