Towards Efficient Design Space Exploration of Heterogeneous Embedded Media Systems

Modern signal processing and multimedia embedded systems increasingly have heterogeneous system architectures. In these systems, programmable processors provide flexibility to support multiple applications, while dedicated hardware blocks provide high performance for time-critical application tasks. The heterogeneity of these embedded systems and the varying demands of their growing number of target applications greatly complicate the system design. As part of the Artemis project, we are developing a modeling and simulation environment which aims at efficient design space exploration of heterogeneous embedded systems architectures. In this paper, we present an overview of the modeling and simulation methodology used in Artemis. Moreover, using a case study in which we have applied an initial version of our prototype modeling and simulation environment to an M-JPEG encoding application, we illustrate the ease with which alternative candidate architectures can be modeled and evaluated.