Hardware-Software Co-Design of Embedded Systems

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 p r o b l e w h e 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 sofhvare 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.