System Level Design of Complex Hardware Applications Using ImpulseC (original) (raw)

Elements of a SystemC Design Platform

Abstact: - Modern digital design, having to cope with the increasing device and application complexities, is based on high-level textual system specifications. While languages like VHDL and Verilog HDL have been effec- tively put to use for hardware design, system level hardware/software codesign requires more abstract and more powerful specification languages, like SystemC. However, for SystemC to be effective, it must be integrated in the existing design flow, taking advantage of previous work, avoiding past mistakes and generating the least possible new, offering clear and distinct advantages, implementing the latest research results and helping designers over- come the learning curve. This paper discusses issues of a pure SystemC design platform, states its applicability and its new perspective in system level design and offers tool interoperability solutions. Through such platforms, SystemC can leverage digital design industry from high level hardware design to system level har...

Modeling embedded systems using SystemC extensions

SystemC AMS extensions introduce new language constructs for the design of embedded analog/mixed-signal systems. This paper presents the novel modeling language for analog and mixed-signal functions that supports design and modeling of telecommunications, automotive and imaging sensor applications at various levels of abstraction. A simple example illustrates how these new features facilitate a design refinement methodology for functional modeling, architecture exploration and virtual prototyping of embedded analog and mixed-signal systems.

C-Based Design of Heterogeneous Embedded Systems

2008

With the proliferation of all kinds of electronic devices and our increased dependences on electronics in every aspect of our lives from handheld PDAs, cell phones, medical and prosthetic devices to automotives and fly-by-wire airplanes, embedded systems have changed dramatically. Such changes have given rise to increasingly complex applications on resource constrained embedded platforms, and new innovative system architectures. On the application side, embedded systems are not any more only invisible computers that do one dedicated task, but also ones which sense, observe, decide, act, and are networked with their environment (ambient intelligence).

Single Source Design Environment for Embedded Systems Based on SystemC

Design Automation for Embedded Systems, 2004

There is a clear need for new methodologies supporting efficient design of embedded systems on complex platforms implementing both hardware and software modules. Software development has to be carried out under a closer relationship with the underlying platform. The current trend is towards an increasing embedded software development effort under more stringent time-to-market requirements. As a consequence, it is necessary to reduce software generation cost while maintaining reliability and design quality. In that context, languages centered on describing whole systems, with software and hardware parts, have been proposed. Among these, SystemC is gaining increasing interest as a specification language for embedded systems. SystemC supports the specification of the complete system and the modeling of the platform. In this paper, the application of SystemC to performance analysis and embedded software generation is discussed. A single-source approach is proposed, that is, the use of the same code for system-level specification and profiling, and, after architectural mapping, for HW/SW co-simulation and embedded software generation. A design environment based on C++ libraries for performance analysis and software generation is presented. This approach avoids working on intermediate formats and translators, which facilitates the designer’s interaction with the system description throughout the development process. Additionally, it ensures the preservation of the computational models used for the system specification during architectural mapping and compilation.

Embedded Software Generation from SystemC for Platform Based Design

The current trend in embedded system design is towards an increasing percentage of the embedded SW development cost of the total embedded system design costs. There is a clear need of reducing SW generation cost while maintaining reliability and design quality. SystemC represents a step forward in ensuring these goals. In this chapter, the application of SystemC to embedded SW generation is discussed. The state of art of the existing techniques for SW generation is analyzed and their advantages and drawbacks presented. In addition, methods for systematic embedded software generation which reduce the software generation cost in a platform based HW/SW co-design methodology for embedded systems based on SystemC is presented. SystemC supports a single-source approach, that is, the use of the same code for system level specification and verification, and, after HW/SW partitioning, for HW/SW co-simulation and embedded SW generation.

Hardware/software co-design of digital telecommunication systems

Proceedings of The IEEE, 1997

In this paper we reflect on the nature of digital telecommunication systems. We argue that these systems require, by nature, a heterogeneous specification and an implementation with heterogeneous architectural styles. CoWare is a hardware/software co-design environment based on a data model that allows to specify, simulate, and synthesize heterogeneous hardware/software architectures from a heterogeneous specification. CoWare is based on the principle of encapsulation of existing hardware and software compilers and special attention is paid to the interactive synthesis of hardware/software and hardware/hardware interfaces. The principles of CoWare will be illustrated by the design process of a spread-spectrum receiver for a pager system.

IP-CENTRIC METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN WITH THE SPECC LANGUAGE System Level Design of Embedded Systems

1999

In this paper, we demonstrate the application of the specify-explore-refine (SER) paradigm for an IP-centric codesign of embedded systems. We describe the necessary design tasks required to map an abstract executable specification of the system to the architectural implementation model. We also describe the final and intermediate models generated as a result of these design tasks. The executable specification and its refinements should support easy insertion and reuse of IPs. Although several languages are currently used for system design, none of them completely meets the unique requirements of system modelling with support for IP reuse. This paper discusses the requirements and objectives for system languages and describes a C-based language called SpecC, which precisely covers these requirements in an orthogonal manner. Finally, we describe the design environment which is based on our codesign methodology.

A high-level programming paradigm for SystemC

Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, …, 2004

The SystemC language plays an increasingly important role in the system-level design domain, facilitating designers to start with modeling and simulating system components and their interactions in the very early design stages. This paper presents the SCPEx language which is built on top of SystemC and which extends SystemC's programming model with a message-passing paradigm. SCPEx's message-passing paradigm raises the abstraction level of SystemC models even further, thereby reducing the modeling effort required for developing the (transaction-level) system models applied in the early design stages as well as making the modeling process less prone to programming errors. Moreover, SCPEx allows for performing automatic and transparent gathering of various simulation statistics, such as statistics on communication between components.

SystemC Modelling of the Embedded Networks

Following to the rapid development and broad acceptance of computers and microprocessors, communication standards and network technologies development engineers are compelled to equally increase complexity of development, manufacturing and testing of new products. Every year complexity of the embedded systems is increasing exponentially and this is true not only for the HW components, but also for embedded software. These forced the system developers to look for the new means that would allow them to cope with increasing projects complexity, to reach competitive productivity and guarantee that the developed systems satisfies customers' expectations. Thus modelling takes more important role in the development process as a solution to perform detailed check of the specification and project verification to a stage of physical realization. Modelling could be applied to the different stages of system design and a number of different languages and modeling platforms can be used. The models could have different structures and internal logic. This article describes a role of modeling inside the systems development course, discuss the advantages and tricky points that the developer can face while using modeling approach. Besides, the article describes SystemC modelling language, which is a good solution for making models of the embedded networks.

Design of Communication Infrastructures for Reconfigurable Systems

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, 2009

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