Effective Heterogenous Design and Co-simulation

In this chapter, we consider the problem of system-level design where subsystems are diverse. As a concrete example, consider an embedded system with the architecture shown in figure 1 (after [5]). The subsystems are implemented in both hardware and software, making this architecture a suitable candidate for hardware/software co-design. But even within the software portions, there is diversity. Control-oriented processes are mixed under the supervision of a multitasking realtime kernel running in the microcontroller. In addition, hard-real-time tasks run cooperatively on two programmable DSPs. The design styles used for these two software subsystems are likely to be quite different from one another, and testing