Report Number: CSL-TR-94-614
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory.
Title: Co-Synthesis of Hardware and Software for Digital Embedded Systems
Author: Gupta, Rajesh Kumar
Date: December 1993
Abstract: As the complexity of systems being subject to computer-aided synthesis and optimization techniques increases, so does the need to find ways to incorporate predesigned components into the final system implementation. In this context, a general-purpose microprocessor provides a sophisticated low-cost component that can be tailored to realize most system functions through appropriate software. This approach is particularly useful in the design of embedded systems that have a relatively simple target architecture, when compared to general-purpose computing systems such as workstations. In embedded systems the processor is used as a resource dedicated to implement specific functions. However, the design issues in embedded systems are complicated since most of these systems operate in a time-constrained environment. Recent advances in chip-level synthesis have made it possible to synthesize application-specific circuits under strict timing constraints. This dissertation formulates the problem of computer-aided design of embedded systems using both application-specific as well as general-purpose reprogrammable components under timing constraints. Given a specification of system functionality and constraints in a hardware description language, we model the system as a set of bilogic flow graphs, and formulate the co-synthesis problem as a partitioning problem under constraints. Timing constraints are used to determine the parts of the system functionality that are delegated to application-specific hardware and the software that runs on the processor. The software component of such a 'mixed' system poses an interesting problem due to its interaction with concurrently operating hardware. We address this problem by generating software as a set of concurrent fixed-latency serialized operations called threads. The satisfaction of the imposed performance constraints is then ensured by exploiting concurrency between program threads, achieved by an inter-leaved execution on a single processor system. This co-synthesis of hardware and software from behavioral specifications makes it possible to build time-constrained embedded systems by using off-the-shelf parts and application-specific circuitry. Due to the reduction in size of application-specific hardware needed compared to an all-hardware solution, the needed hardware component can be easily mapped to semicustom VLSI such as gate arrays, thus shortening the design time. In addition, the ability to perform a detailed analysis of timing performance provides an opportunity to improve the system definition by creating better prototypes. The algorithms and techniques described have been implemented in a framework called Vulcan, which is integrated with the Stanford Olympus Synthesis System and provides a path from chip-level synthesis to system-level synthesis.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/94/614/CSL-TR-94-614.pdf