Introduction to Open Core Protocol

Book excerpt: This book introduces Open Core Protocol (OCP) not as a conventional hardware communications protocol but as a meta-protocol: a means for describing and capturing the communications requirements of an IP core, and mapping them to a specific set of signals with known semantics. Readers will learn the capabilities of OCP as a semiconductor hardware interface specification that allows different System-On-Chip (SoC) cores to communicate. The OCP methodology presented enables intellectual property designers to design core interfaces in standard ways. This facilitates reusing OCP-compliant cores across multiple SoC designs which, in turn, drastically reduces design times, support costs, and overall cost for electronics/SoCs.