DESIGN METHODOLOGIES IN ELECTRONICS : APPLICATION TO A W-CDMA MULTIRATE TRANSCEIVER FOR NOISY ENVIRONMENT.

This article takes place into system conception dedicated to a transceiver prototype for closed environment (home automation, cars, town...). We present here design methodologies based on a virtual-prototyping multi-software platform. A first top-down conception is presented, grounded on mixed (analogical and digital) functional (SABER Software), high level codage language (VHDL code), and place and route (CADENCE environment) simulations. The methodology presented allows to quantify the performances reached in terms of cost, power consumption, complexity and surface area of the final ASIC circuit according to the avalaible technological libraries. We then propose, in a second part, a new faster methodology based on direct high VHDL AMS language, which allows to reduce the conception time by 30 %