H d Hardware-Software S ft Codesign C d i 1 I 1.

Introduction t d ti
Lothar Thiele

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

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Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory

Contents
What is an Embedded System ? Levels of Abstraction in Electronic System Design Typical Design Flow of Hardware-Software Systems

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Embedded Systems
Embedded systems (ES) = information processing systems t embedded b dd d into i t a larger l product d t Examples: p

Main reason for buying is not information processing

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Embedded Systems
external process human interface

embedded e bedded system syste

sensors, actuators

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Parallel and Distributed Target Platforms

ABS ACC ESP ASR

engine g control

powertrain control

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Example: Cell Processor

Cell Processor (IBM) combines
general-purpose architecture core with coprocessing elements which greatly accelerate multimedia and vector processing applications applications, as well as many other forms of dedicated computation.

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Communicating Embedded Systems

sensor networks (civil engineering, buildings, environmental monitoring, traffic, emergency situations) smart products, wearable/ubiquitous computing
MICS

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Trends e ds in Information o at o a and d Co Communication u cat o

Centralized Systems

Networked Systems

Large-scale Distributed Systems

Internet

New Applications and System Paradigms

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Comparison
Embedded Systems
Few applications that are known at design-time. Not programmable by end user. Fixed run-time requirements ( dditi (additional l computing ti power not useful). Criteria: cost power consumption predictability meeting time bounds
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General Purpose Computing

Broad class of applications. Programmable by end user user. Faster is better.

Criteria: cost average speed

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Design Challenges
Challenges in the design of embedded systems
increasing application complexity even in standard and large volume products
large systems with legacy functions mixture of event driven and data flow tasks examples: p multimedia, , automotive, , mobile communication

increasing target system complexity

mixture of different technologies, processor types, and design styles large systems-on-a-chip combining components from different sources, distributed system implementations

numerous constraints and design objectives

examples: cost, power consumption, timing constraints, dependability

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Implementation Alternatives
General-purpose processors

Performance Power Efficiency

Application-specific instruction set processors (ASIPs) Microcontroller DSPs (digital signal processors)

Flexibility

Programmable hardware FPGA (field-programmable gate arrays)

Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)

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Contents
What is an Embedded System ? Levels of Abstraction in Electronic System Design Typical Design Flow of Hardware-Software Systems

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Abstraction, Models and Synthesis

Model
F Formal ld description i ti of f selected l t d properties ti of f a system t or subsystem b t A model consists of data and associated methods

Classification of models
Degree of abstraction, granularity
hardwarre: system, system architecture, architecture logic logic, transistor transistor, software: module, block/class, function/method, ...

View
behavior, structural, physical

Synthesis
Linking adjacent levels of abstraction (refinement) Stepwise adding of structural information
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Levels of Abstractions

B h i Behavior

System
Process/Module Function Architecture

SW

HW
Gate-level Gate level models Switch-level models Circuit-level models Device-level Device level models Layout models
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RTL

Structure

Object Code

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Contents
What is an Embedded System ? Levels of Abstraction in Electronic System Design Typical Design Flow of Hardware-Software Systems

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System Design
Specification System Synthesis Estimation

SW-Compilation Intellectual Prop. Code

Instruction Set

HW-Synthesis Intellectual Prop. Block

Machine Code
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Net lists
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Fixed Processor Architecture

Specification System Synthesis Estimation

SW-Compilation Intellectual Prop. Code

Instruction Set

HW-Synthesis Intellectual Prop. Block

Machine Code
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Net lists
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Application Specific HW Block

Specification System Synthesis Estimation

SW-Compilation Intellectual Prop. Code

Instruction Set

HW-Synthesis Intellectual Prop. Block

Machine Code
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Net lists
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Application-Specific Application Specific Instruction Set Processor

Specification System Synthesis Estimation

SW-Compilation Intellectual Prop. Code

Instruction Set

HW-Synthesis Intellectual Prop. Block

Machine Code
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Net lists
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System-Level System Level Design

System-level design is a complex synthesis tasks
software synthesis and code generation hardware synthesis interface f and communication synthesis hardware/software partitioning and component selection h d hardware/software / ft scheduling h d li

Major Components:
application specification design space exploration and system optimization estimation

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The Mapping Problem

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HW/SW Mapping and Scheduling

Hardware/software mapping
P Partitioning titi i of f system t function f ti to t programmable bl components t (software), hard-wired or parameterized components (hardware) or application pp specific p instruction set p processors.

Similarity to scheduling and load distribution problem in realtime operating systems

time constraints, context switch and context switch overhead, process synchronization and communication

Differences to real-time operating systems

larger design space with very different solutions high optimization requirements (motivation for hardware design) underlying hardware is not fixed
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HW/SW Mapping and Scheduling

Similarity to allocation (or load distribution) problem in highl level l synthesis h i ( (or real-time l i operating i systems) ) dedicated HWcomponents
P4 P3

P2 P1

SW (processors)

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Estimation
The principle of synthesis based on abstraction only makes sense if there are powerful estimation methods available:
Estimate properties of the next layer(s) of abstraction. Design decisions are based on these estimated properties: If the estimation is not correct (or not accurate enough), the design will be sub-optimal or even not working correctly.
Design Space Exploration

Estimation of lower layer properties

high abstraction ...

Timeline of D i Design

Design Space E l Exploration ti

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Design D i Space S Exploration

low l abstraction
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