发信人: siemens()
整理人: camelsu(2001-01-30 01:24:15), 站内信件
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Hardware And Software May Be Destined To Merge
Giovanni De Micheli
DAC Chair
www.dac.org
With the increasing demand for consumer electronic products, embedded- systems development--made up of both hardware and software components- -will undoubtedly dominate the design world. Once this happens, codesi gn will again become a pressing issue.
Creating embedded systems requires designers to consider hardware and software as one entity. Unfortunately, the boundary between the two re mains fluid for much of the design cycle. Consequently, it is rarely c lear at the outset which tasks should be implemented in hardware and w hich in software. Moreover, embedded de-signers no longer have the lux ury of waiting until after the fact to accommodate hardware deficienci es in the software.
Compounding the problem is the fact that hardware and software are des igned with widely disparate tool sets. This makes it difficult to merg e the two during the development effort.
What's needed is a solution that combines hardware synthesis and place -and-route tools with software compilers. Such a comprehensive approac h to embedded-system design would let designers leverage the synergies between software and hardware throughout the design cycle.
Research in the embedded arena will help address some of these issues. In addition, many EDA vendors now recognize the tremendous growth pot ential of the embedded-systems market segment. As a result, they've be gun pushing new design paradigms in support of a common hardware/softw are design environment.
One such paradigm, SystemC, is being touted by the Open SystemC initia tive. Comprised of nearly 50 charter- member companies, this group esp ouses the production of a common C/C++ modeling platform for hardware/ software codesign of embedded systems. The Open SystemC initiative off ers all deliverables--including source code for C++ libraries, documen tation, and examples--at no cost, over the Internet.
Eliminating the need for multiple modeling languages, SystemC has the potential to allow seamless system-to-silicon design in the C/C++ lang uage. This is a language which all engineers involved in the design cy cle--whether they be hardware, software, or system designers--should u nderstand.
Working with a common language has many advantages. One benefit is the ability to more easily migrate functionality between hardware and sof tware implementations. Equally important is the ability to enable syst em-level modeling of complex software and hardware at multiple abstrac tions.
This isn't to say that the challenge of codesign will magically be sol ved by the Open SystemC initiative. There's much groundwork yet to be done. Still, the initiative is a concrete step toward achieving the lo ng-awaited hardware/software codesign environment.
Embedded-systems design and solutions such as SystemC will be a major emphasis at this year's Design Automation Conference (DAC). Scheduled to be held June 5-9 in Los Angeles, Calif., the convention will devote almost an entire day to a variety of embedded design issues. These to pics will include hardware and software development, portability, low power, and meeting real-time constraints. To learn more about the adva nces being made in embedded design, make sure you check out this year' s DAC.
Contributed by Giovanni De Micheli, professor of electrical engineerin g, courtesy of the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. De Micheli is currently serving as the general chair of the Design Au tomation Conference
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