An object-oriented hardware/software co-design paradigm

Advances in VLSI technology have shown that there is a high potential for the development of computational systems reusing components with sophisticated design. Most of the existing design methods do not take advantage of the object oriented technology initially developed to satisfy the software engineering requirements. This paper proposes a new method of designing hardware/software systems, where an object oriented approach is adopted. Objects, described by attributes and methods, are used in the circuit design. Such objects are able to represent hardware and software components, as well as design optimization techniques. Examples show that objects allow the design to be modified or adapted with a lower effort and in a shorter time than regular design approaches.