A Compositional Semantic Theory for Synchronous Component-based Design

Digital signal processing and control (DSPC) tools allow application developers to assemble systems by connecting predefined components in signal–flow graphs and by hierarchically building new components via encapsulating sub–graphs. Run–time environments then dynamically schedule components for execution on some embedded processor, typically in a synchronous cycle–based fashion, and check whether one component jams another by producing outputs faster than can be consumed. This paper develops a process–algebraic model of coordination for synchronous component–based design, which directly lends itself to compositionally formalising the monolithic semantics of DSPC tools. By uniformly combining the well–known concepts of abstract clocks, maximal progress and clock–hiding, it is shown how the DSPC principles of dynamic synchronous scheduling, isochrony and encapsulation may be captured faithfully and compositionally in process algebra, and how observation equivalence may facilitate jam checks at compile–time.