Extending Hardware Description in SDL

The use of SDL (Specification and Description Language) for digital hardware description and analysis is investigated in this report. It continues the work undertaken at the University of Stirling and the Technical University of Budapest on hardware description with SDL, offering a modular approach to hardware design in SDL. Although SDL is widely used in the software and telecommunication community, it is not very popular with hardware designers. However, it has attracted the researcher’s interest because it offers good system structuring features and the possibility of software-hardware co-design. One way of supporting hardware engineers when translating a circuit schematic into a SDL specification is to have a library of ready-to-use or pre-defined digital components. These elements may then be used as building blocks to aid in the development of more complex electronic hardware. The main goal of this report has been to extend an existing SDL logic library, in an attempt to reflect the range of components typically available to electronics designers. Using these libraries and a commercial tool for SDL the properties of a realistic circuit can now be investigated. Making use of these new elements, a practical case study has been carried out. The overall results clearly show that hardware description in SDL is an interesting alternative to other more traditional methods of hardware analysis. Thanks to the Faculty of Management for the financial support for this project and, finally, thanks to th