Hardware/Software Co-Design Research For Embedded Systems

Embedded computer systems use off-the-shelf microprocessors, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), buses and memories to implement specialized system functions. Examples include laser printers, cellular phones, microwave ovens, and automobile anti-lock brake controller. With deep submicron technology, an embedded system can be integrated into a single chip and becomes "system on chip" for many applications. While hand-crafted techniques were sufficient to design small, low-performance systems in the past, it becomes very difficulty to design complex, high-performance systems by manual design. So the only method is to apply the design automation techniques of embedded systems.Applying the automatic design techniques to embedded systems can not only reduce the development cycle, but also raise the quality of design. It results in high competence of products in market. Such techniques now become the hot issues of the field of Electronic Design Automation (EDA). There are many Universities and companies worldwide which are under the investigation of such techniques. The main work of this thesis is in the fields of design automation techniques of embedded systems. It mainly consists of the following four parts:1. Introducing and analyzing some representative design automation systems of embedded systems. They are Cool Cosyma SpecSyn Chinook Polis and Corsair. Then, a new design automation methodology is put forward which uses UML for specification, SystmeC for simulation and Synopsys tools (CoCentric SystemC Compiler) for hardware synthesis. The main feature of this methodology is its high possibility of implementation. UML is an object-oriented graphic language which provides a set of diagrams to describe systems both from static and dynamic views. Its object-oriented feature makes analyzing and designing of systems more efficient and also converting from UML to SystemC possible because of the same object-oriented feature of SystemC. SystemC is a system level design language which can be used efficiently in hardware/software co-design and co-simulation. It extends the abilities to describe hardware systems in the basis of C++ language. Compared to Cx, HardwareC and SpecC, SystemC can be expected to be the standard language for hardware/software co-design and co-simulation because SystemC has the great power on describing the hardware/software heterogeneous systems and it will continuallydevelop and many virtual tools will appear under great support of many leading EDA vendors. For example, CoCentric SystemC Studio and Cocentric SystemC Compiler are powerful tools provided now by the Synopsys Corporation.2. Introducing a specification and design method for embedded systems. Among UML diagrams, Use Cases are used to describe the requirements and constraints in the system design, e.g. the maximum power of systems, the maximum logic gates used for hardware and the maximum length of the software code, etc. The functionality of system can be encapsulated in a class using object-oriented technique. Sequence diagrams are used to describe the interaction among objects which reflect the functionality of system. Detailed sequence diagrams not only describe the interaction among objects based on sending and receiving messages, but also the time constraints of objects should meet in real-time systems. The dynamic behaviors inside objects are pictured using statecharts. Every state can perform specific activities which are presented in activity diagrams. A real-time package is developed to describe the performance of real-time systems with UML. It includes clock class to access the time, timer class to fulfill the timer functionality in the activity process of objects and communication class to implement the interaction among objects. Another work is emphasizing on a formal verification algorithm for consistence of the sequence diagrams and the statecharts and connectivity of the sequence diagrams messages.3. Designing and implementing an algorithm which is used to convert the UML information wit...