Hardware/Software Codesign of Embedded Systems - The SPI Workbench

Embedded systems typically include reactive and transformative functions, often described in different languages and semantics which are well introduced in the various application fields. A large part of the system functionality and components is reused from previous designs including legacy code. There is little hope that a single language will replace this heterogeneous set of languages. A hardware/software codesign process must be able to bridge the semantic differences for verification and synthesis and should accept limited knowledge of system properties. This paper presents the SPI model which is based on intervals of system properties and is specifically targeted to cosynthesis. This model is the basis of a workbench which is currently under construction in an international cooperation.