Reuse-Potentiale im Hardware-Entwurf

Re-use is important to reduce design effort but can also be used both for a reduction of design time andan additional analysis of design alternatives. Re-use has already been practised for several decades in hardware-design where it gains its importance from its applications. The introduction of74xx-logic chips or microprocessors can, for example, be interpreted as a re-use of transistor circuits. Hereby the first approach can be used fixed, whereas the second approach is more flexible and parametrizable (programmable). These forms of re-use were and still are used in integrated circuit design. For example, gates of a library, or as a recent trend bigger and partly parametrizable or programmable blocks are used as basic elements of a chip under the keyword "cores ". There are different stages of re-use with different abstraction level and different potential. One approach of different re-use possibilities will be given in this article.