DETC2005-85582 A FEATURE-BASED APPROACH TO EMBEDDED SYSTEM HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE CO-DESIGN

ABSTRACT An embedded system is a hybrid of hardware and software that combines software flexibility and hardware real-time performance. The co-design of hardware and software is the most critical but difficult issue in embedded system design. In this paper, we propose a novel feature-based approach to the codesign of hardware (HW) and software (SW) in embedded systems. The approach first defines an extension to the NIST Core Product Model and then provides an object-oriented UML (Unified Modeling Language) representation for the embedded system feature model, including models of embedded system artifacts, components, features, and HW/SW configuration/assembly. The extended model provides a featurebased HW/SW component co-design framework allowing the designer to develop a virtual embedded system prototype through assembling virtual components. The resulting feature-based model serves as the basis for developing reusable and adaptable components/artifacts. The underlying SW and HW components are determined through feature configuration, and thus HW/SW co-design is implemented by using feature-component mapping and component generation, which may be associated with feature creation, configuration, analysis and reuse. A case study example is discussed to illustrate the embedded system model