Hardware/Software Co-Design via Specification Refinement

ii System-level design is an engineering discipline focused on producing methods, technologies, and tools that enable the specification, design, and implementation of complex, multi-discipline, and multi-domain systems. System-level specifica-tions are as abstract as possible, defining required system behaviors while eliding implementation details. These implementation details must be added during the implementation process and the high effort associated with this locks system en-gineers onto the chosen implementation architecture. This work provides two contributions that ease the implementation process. The Rosetta synthesis capability generates hardware/software co-designed implemen-tations from specifications that contain low level implementation details. The Rosetta refinement capability extends this by allowing a system’s functional be-havior and its implementation details to be described separately. The Rosetta Re-finement Tool combines the functional behavior and the implementation detail