Design of a MP3 Decoder Using the System-on-Chip Environment (SCE)

Electronic System-Level (ESL) design is touted as a promising solution to sustain productivity in embedded system design in the presence of increasing complexities and decreasing time-to-market. The System-On-Chip Environment (SCE) provides such a SpecC-based ESL design solution. In this report, the authors demonstrate SCE as applied to the design of a MP3 decoder. Starting from a reference C code, an initial specification model is developed and several different architectural alternatives are explored for implementation on an ARM-based target platform. Using SCE, models for all alternatives are generated and a final, optimal Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) design is selected.