Hardware-Software Co-design of Embedded Systems

This paper surveys the design of embedded computer systems, which use software running on programmable computers to im-plement system functions. Creating an embedded computer system which meets its performance, cost, and design time goals is a hardware-software co-design p r o b l e w h e design of the hard-ware and software components influence each other. This paper emphasizes a historical approach to show the relationships be-tween well-understood design problems and the as-yet unsolved problems in co-design. We describe the relationship between hard-ware and sofhvare architecture in the early stages of embedded system design. We describe analysis techniques for hardware and software relevant to the architectural choices required for hard-ware-software co-design. We also describe design and synthesis techniques for co-design and related problems. I