This paper surveys the design of embedded computer systems, which use software running on programmable computers to implement system functions. Creating an embedded computer system which meets its performance, cost, and design time goals is a hardware-software co-design problem-the design of the hardware and software components influence each other. This paper emphasizes a historical approach to show the relationships between well-understood design problems and the as-yet unsolved problems in co-design. We describe the relationship between hardware and software architecture in the early stages of embedded system design. We describe analysis techniques for hardware and software relevant to the architectural choices required for hardware-software co-design. We also describe design and synthesis techniques for co-design and related problems. >

http://home.engineering.iastate.edu/~zambreno/classes/cpre583/documents/Wol94A.pdf

Hardware-software co-design of embedded systems

Designers generally implement embedded controllers for reactive real-time applications as mixed software-hardware systems. In our formal methodology for specifying, modeling, automatically synthesizing, and verifying such systems, design takes place within a unified framework that prejudices neither hardware nor software implementation. After interactive partitioning, this approach automatically synthesizes the entire design, including hardware-software interfaces. Maintaining a finite-state machine model throughout, it preserves the formal properties of the design. It also allows verification of both specification and implementation, as well as the use of specification refinement through formal verification. >

Hardware-software codesign of embedded systems

A hardware and software co-design environment and design methodology based on a data-model that allows one to specify, simulate, and synthesize heterogeneous hardware and software architectures from a heterogeneous specification. The environment and methodology of the invention allow for the interactive synthesis of hardware and software interfaces. The environment defines primitive objects to represent a specification of an essentially digital system. The primitive objects are defined by describing the specification of the system in one or more processes, each process representing a functional aspect of the system. Further, each of the processes have ports which are connected to ports of other processes with a channel. The ports structure communication between the processes.

A design environment and a design method for hardware/software co-design

As the complexity of systems being subject to computer-aided synthesis and optimization techniques increases, so does the need to find ways to incorporate predesigned components into final system implementation. In this context, a general-purpose microprocessor provides a sophisticated low-cost component that can be tailored to realize most system functions through appropriate software. This approach is particularly useful in the design of embedded systems that have a relatively simple target architecture, when compared to general-purpose computing systems such as workstations. In embedded systems the processor is used as a resource dedicated to implement specific functions. However, the design issues in embedded systems are complicated since most of these systems operate in a time-constrained environment. Recent advances in chip-level synthesis have made it possible to synthesize application-specific circuits under strict timing constraints. This dissertation formulates the problem of computer-aided design of embedded systems using both application-specific as well as general-purpose reprogrammable components.
Given a specification of system functionality and constraints in a hardware description language, we model the system as a set of bilogic flow graphs, and formulate the co-synthesis problem as a partitioning problem under constraints. Timing constraints are used to determine the parts of the system functionality that are delegated to application-specific hardware and the software that runs on the processor. The software component of such a 'mixed' system poses an interesting problem due to its interaction with concurrently operating hardware. We address this problem by generating software as a set of concurrent fixed-latency serialized operations called threads. The satisfaction of the imposed performance constraints is then ensured by exploiting concurrency between program threads, achieved by an inter-leaved execution on a single processor system.
This co-synthesis of hardware and software from behavioral specifications makes it possible to build time-constrained embedded systems by using off-the-shelf parts and application-specific circuitry. Due to the reduction in size of application-specific hardware needed compared to an all-hardware solution, the needed hardware component can be easily mapped to semicustom VLSI such as gate arrays, thus shortening the design time. In addition, the ability to perform a detailed analysis of timing performance provides an opportunity to improve the system definition by creating better prototypes. The algorithms and techniques described have been implemented in a framework called Vulcan, which is integrated with the Stanford Olympus Synthesis System and provides a path from chip-level synthesis to system-level synthesis.

/pdf/co-synthesis-of-hardware-and-software-for-digital-embedded-hczr5zkv3y.pdf

Co-Synthesis of Hardware and Software for Digital Embedded Systems

Designers of embedded systems are facing ever tighter constraints on design time, but computer-aided design tools for embedded systems have not kept pace with these trends. The Chinook co-synthesis system addresses the automation of the most time-consuming and error-prone tasks in embedded controller design, namely the synthesis of interface hardware and software needed to integrate system components, the migration of functions between processors or custom logic, and the co-simulation of the design before, during and after synthesis. This paper describes the principal elements of Chinook and discuss its application to a variety of embedded designs.

/pdf/the-chinook-hardware-software-co-synthesis-system-1jgh2uaqpj.pdf

The Chinook hardware/software co-synthesis system

A tool that automates the synthesis of the hardware/software interface between a microcontroller and the devices it controls is described. Optimizations of the synthesis process focus primarily on the minimization of interface hardware and also the code size of the device driver routines. This interface synthesis problem is specified and the data structures used to represent the microcontroller, devices, and hardware and software primitives are described. The port allocation algorithm is presented and the features of this interface synthesis tool are highlighted with two practical examples. >

Synthesis of the hardware/software interface in microcontroller-based systems

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Synthesis of the hardware/software interface in microcontroller-based systems