Design Technology For Heterogeneous Embedded Systems

Design technology to address the new and vast problem of heterogeneous embedded systems design while remaining compatible with standard “More Moore” flows, i.e. capable of simultaneously handling both silicon complexity and system complexity, represents one of the most important challenges facing the semiconductor industry today and will be for several years to come. While the micro-electronics industry, over the years and with its spectacular and unique evolution, has built its own specific design methods to focus mainly on the management of complexity through the establishment of abstraction levels, the emergence of device heterogeneity requires new approaches enabling the satisfactory design of physically heterogeneous embedded systems for the widespread deployment of such systems. Heterogeneous Embedded Systems, compiled largely from a set of contributions from participants of past editions of the Winter School on Heterogeneous Embedded Systems Design Technology (FETCH), proposes a necessarily broad and holistic overview of design techniques used to tackle the various facets of heterogeneity in terms of technology and opportunities at the physical level, signal representations and different abstraction levels, architectures and components based on hardware and software, in all the main phases of design (modeling, validation with multiple models of computation, synthesis and optimization). It concentrates on the specific issues at the interfaces, and is divided into two main parts. The first part examines mainly theoretical issues and focuses on the modeling, validation and design techniques themselves. The second part illustrates the use of these methods in various design contexts at the forefront of new technology and architectural developments.

Modern electronic systems consist of a fairly heterogeneous set of components. Today, a single system can be constituted by a hardware platform, frequently composed of a mix of analog and digital components, and by several software application layers. The hardware can include several heterogeneous microprocessors (e.g. GPP, DSP, GPU, etc.), dedicated ICs (ASICs and/or FPGAs), memories, a set of local connections between the system components, and some interfaces between the system and the environment (sensors, actuators, etc.). Therefore, on the one hand, multi-processor embedded systems are capable of meeting the demand of processing power and flexibility of complex applications. On the other hand, such systems are very complex to design and optimize, so that the design methodology plays a major role in determining the success of the products. For these reasons, to cope with the increasing system complexity, the approaches typically used today are oriented towards co-design methodologies working at the higher levels of abstraction. Unfortunately, such methodologies are typically customized for the specific application, suffer of a lack of generality and still need a considerable effort when real-size project are envisioned. Therefore, there is still the need for a general methodology able to support the designer during the high-level steps of a co-design flow, enabling an effective design space exploration before tackling the low-level steps and thus committing to the final technology. This should prevent costly redesign loops.In such a context, the work described in this book, composed of two parts, aims at providing models, methodologies and tools to support each step of the co-design flow of embedded systems implemented by exploiting heterogeneous multi-processor architectures mapped on distributed systems, as well as fully integrated onto a single chip.

The demands of increasingly complex embedded systems and associated performance computations have resulted in the development of heterogeneous computing architectures that often integrate several types of processors, analog and digital electronic components, and mechanical and optical components—all on a single chip. As a result, now the most prominent challenge for the design automation community is to efficiently plan for such heterogeneity and to fully exploit its capabilities. A compilation of work from internationally renowned authors, Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems elaborates on related practices and addresses the main facets of heterogeneous model-based design for embedded systems, including the current state of the art, important challenges, and the latest trends. Focusing on computational models as the core design artifact, this book presents the cutting-edge results that have helped establish model-based design and continue to expand its parameters. The book is organized into three sections: Real-Time and Performance Analysis in Heterogeneous Embedded Systems, Design Tools and Methodology for Multiprocessor System-on-Chip, and Design Tools and Methodology for Multidomain Embedded Systems. The respective contributors share their considerable expertise on the automation of design refinement and how to relate properties throughout this refinement while enabling analytic and synthetic qualities. They focus on multi-core methodological issues, real-time analysis, and modeling and validation, taking into account how optical, electronic, and mechanical components often interface. Model-based design is emerging as a solution to bridge the gap between the availability of computational capabilities and our inability to make full use of them yet. This approach enables teams to start the design process using a high-level model that is gradually refined through abstraction levels to ultimately yield a prototype. When executed well, model-based design encourages enhanced performance and quicker time to market for a product. Illustrating a broad and diverse spectrum of applications such as in the automotive aerospace, health care, consumer electronics, this volume provides designers with practical, readily adaptable modeling solutions for their own practice.

This extensive and increasing use of embedded systems and their integration in everyday products mark a significant evolution in information science and technology. Nowadays embedded systems design is subject to seamless integration with the physical and electronic environment while meeting requirements like reliability, availability, robustness, power consumption, cost, and deadlines. Thus, embedded systems design raises challenging problems for research, such as security, reliable and mobile services, large-scale heterogeneous distributed systems, adaptation, component-based development, and validation and tool-based certification. This book results from the ARTIST FP5 project funded by the European Commision. By integration 28 leading European research institutions with many top researchers in the area, this book assesses and strategically advances the state of the art in embedded systems. The coherently written monograph-like book is a valuable source of reference for researchers active in the field and serves well as an introduction to scientists and professionals interested in learning about embedded systems design.

Introduces different tasks of hardware/software co-design, including system specification, hardware/software partitioning, co-synthesis, and co-simulation. Summarizes and classifies co-design tools and methods for these tasks, and presents the co-design tool COOL, useful for solving co-design tasks for the class of data-flow dominated embedded systems. Primary emphasis is on hardware/software partitioning and the co-synthesis phase and their coupling. A mathematical formulation of the hardware/software partitioning problem is given, and several novel approaches are presented and compared for solving the partitioning problem. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The demands of increasingly complex embedded systems and associated performance computations have resulted in the development of heterogeneous computing architectures that often integrate several types of processors, analog and digital electronic components, and mechanical and optical components—all on a single chip. As a result, now the most prominent challenge for the design automation community is to efficiently plan for such heterogeneity and to fully exploit its capabilities. A compilation of work from internationally renowned authors, Model-Based Design for Embedded Systems elaborates on related practices and addresses the main facets of heterogeneous model-based design for embedded systems, including the current state of the art, important challenges, and the latest trends. Focusing on computational models as the core design artifact, this book presents the cutting-edge results that have helped establish model-based design and continue to expand its parameters. The book is organized into three sections: Real-Time and Performance Analysis in Heterogeneous Embedded Systems, Design Tools and Methodology for Multiprocessor System-on-Chip, and Design Tools and Methodology for Multidomain Embedded Systems. The respective contributors share their considerable expertise on the automation of design refinement and how to relate properties throughout this refinement while enabling analytic and synthetic qualities. They focus on multi-core methodological issues, real-time analysis, and modeling and validation, taking into account how optical, electronic, and mechanical components often interface. Model-based design is emerging as a solution to bridge the gap between the availability of computational capabilities and our inability to make full use of them yet. This approach enables teams to start the design process using a high-level model that is gradually refined through abstraction levels to ultimately yield a prototype. When executed well, model-based design encourages enhanced performance and quicker time to market for a product. Illustrating a broad and diverse spectrum of applications such as in the automotive aerospace, health care, consumer electronics, this volume provides designers with practical, readily adaptable modeling solutions for their own practice.

Ubiquitous in today's consumer-driven society, embedded systems use microprocessors that are hidden in our everyday products and designed to perform specific tasks. Effective use of these embedded systems requires engineers to be proficient in all phases of this effort, from planning, design, and analysis to manufacturing and marketing.Taking a sys