The SoC Environment (SCE) is an implementation of the concept of the exploration engine as a step in our overall SoC design flow research.

The SCE provides a environment for modeling, synthesis and validation. It includes a graphical user interface (GUI) and a set of tools to facilitate the design flow and perform refinement steps. The two major components of the GUI are the Refinement User Interface (RUI) and the Validation User Interface (VUI). The RUI allows designers to make and input design decisions, such as component allocation, specification mapping. With design decisions made, refinement tools can be invoked inside RUI to refine models. The VUI allows the simulation of all models to validate the design at each stage of the design flow.

A profiling tool is used to obtain the characteristics of the initial specification, which serves as the basis for architecture exploration. The refinement tool set automatically transforms models based on relevant design decisions. An estimation tool set produces quality metrics for each intermediate models, which can be evaluated by designers.

With the assistance of the GUI and tool set, it is relatively easy for designer to step through the design process. With the editing, browsing and algorithm selection capability provided by the RUI, a specification model can be efficiently captured by designers. Based on the information profiled on the specification, designers input architectural decisions and apply the architecture refinement tool to derive the architecture model. If the estimated metrics are satisfactory, designers can focus on communication issues, such as protocol selection and channel partitioning. With communication decisions made, the communication refinement tool is used to generate the communication model. Finally, the implementation model is produced in the similar fashion, ready to feed into traditional design flows.