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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