Photo: Arto Oinonen
In his research, Master of Science in Technology Antti Rautakoura explored whether System-on-Chip (SoC) design can benefit from agile methods that have revolutionized software development. The results show that the traditional waterfall model still dominates hardware development, but agility can be promoted through new principles such as predictable schedules and interface-focused implementation. Using these principles, the team successfully designed three SoCs at a pace of one chip per year, demonstrating the feasibility of the approach. These findings are significant because they provide industry and research with tools to accelerate development and improve quality, potentially reducing product development time and lowering error-related costs.
Antti Rautakoura’s doctoral dissertation System-on-Chip Design: Can It Be Agile? in the field of computer engineering will be publicly examined at Tampere University’s Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences on December 19, 2025.
The opponent will be Professor Lauri Koskinen from the University of Oulu, and the custos will be Professor Timo Hämäläinen from the Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences, Tampere University.