High Level Design using SyncCharts: A Case Study

This presentation shows how “SyncCharts” can be used in the design of a controller. “SyncCharts” is a graphical synchronous formalism that inherits from Statecharts in its look and from Esterel in its foundations. SyncCharts supports hierarchical descriptions, concurrency and preemption. We use it to express the exepected behavior of control-dominated systems. Choosing the non trivial example of a binary encoder/decoder, we illustrate high-level description capabilities of this model. Then, thanks to the mathematical semantics of SyncCharts, we explain how to validate the design, using both interactive simulation and model checking. Finally, with the help of synthesis tools present in the Esterel software environment, we show how our approach makes the design easier, without loss of rigour or efficiency.