Evolution of Digital-Design: Past, Present, and Future Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems Maziar Goudarzi

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 2 Topics of Discussion Why Digital? Evolution of Digital Design Methods and Tools HDL vs. SDL What’s a System? Hardware/Software Co-design

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 3 Why Digital? Analog –Analog inputs/outputs –Continuous in time or value –Sensitive to environment –No reproducible state and result –Fast Digital –Fully digital IO –Discrete in time and value –Independent from environment –Always reproducible –Relatively slow Digital view of the world is an abstract view of real world.

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 4 Evolution of Digital Design Methods TransistorNetlist1970’s

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 5 RT level, Schematic 1980’s RT level: Register Transfer level Evolution of DDM (cont.)

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 6 BL, HDL 1990’s BL: Behavioral Level, HDL: Hardware Description Language Evolution of DDM (cont.)

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 7 HDL’sHardwareCVerilog AHDL AHDL VHDL VHDLSDL’sCPascal ADA ADA HDL vs. SDL: Requirements

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 8 Operating System Software Program Hardware Program Compilation Synthesis HDL vs. SDL: Realization

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 9 Hardware Realization –Speed –Energy Efficiency –Cost Efficiency (in high volumes) Software Realization –Flexibility –Ease of Development –Ease of Test and Debug –Cost = SW + Processor Any SW-realizable algorithm is HW-realizable as well. HDL vs. SDL: Features

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 10 Topics of Discussion Why Digital? Evolution of Digital Design Methods and Tools HDL’s vs. SDL’s What’s a System? Hardware/Software Co- design

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 11 System What’s a System? Examples

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 12 What’s a System? Customer’s view: System = User/Customer-specified functionality + requirements in terms of: Cost, Speed, Power, Dimensions, Weight, … Designer’s view: System = HW components +SW modules

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 13 What’s a System? Examples Arvand’s RCU (Robot Control Unit) –Functionality Motors –Motion motors –Steering motors Sensors –Touch sensors –Infra-Red sensors –Requirements Dimensions Power Arvand Robots Sharif CE Middle-Size Soccer Robots

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 14 System Realization: An Example HW/SW Compound RCU –HW: Motherboard + RCU Sensor enabling Micro-controller –SW: SW on motherboard: image processing, strategy, downward communication SW on RCU: motor control, sensor readout, upward communication. Full SW RCU –Sole HW: Motherboard –SW: non-terminating loops for image processing, sensor enabling and readout, and motors + playing strategy Full HW RCU –HW: Motherboard + RCU All sensor/motor handling –SW: Non-terminating loop only for image, strategy, and downward communication

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 15 How much SW + how much HW? Objectives: –Power –Speed –Area –Memory space –Time-to-market Implementation platform: –Collection of chips on a board (MCM) –Distributed Multi-processor HW-SW Co-design

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 16 Synthesis VerificationSpecification System HS OS System Co-design Main Topics

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 17 Co-Synthesis System Specification Partitioning HW Parameter Estimation SW Parameter Estimation System Integration Verification Final Verification SW SynthesisHW Synthesis ASICOS EXE Code

2005 Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems 18 What we learned today Hardware and software are functionally equivalent –Non-functional requirements determine HW/SW implementation Next step toward higher abstracions: HW- SW Co-design Co-design –Examples –Classification of issues –A typical co-design flow