A Model-driven Co-design Flow for Embedded Systems

Abstract

The {UML} (Unified Modeling Language), with the enhancements in {UML2}, is receiving interest by an increasing number of industrial and academic groups from the embedded software and hardware areas, who look at it and at its extension mechanisms as a practical and standard means to define family of languages targeted to specific application domains and levels of abstraction, while providing unification. In the Embedded Systems and {SoC} (System-on-Chip) area, we defined a model-driven design methodology based on {UML} 2.0, {UML} profiles and {C/C++/SystemC.} In this chapter, we extend this design flow in order to support the platform-based design principles. We also present the architecture of a prototype tool, which provides a graphical representation in {UML} (from a high-level functional model down to {RTL)} of {HW} and {SW} components, {C/C++/SystemC} code generation from {UML} models, and a reverse engineering process from {C/C++/SystemC} code to {UML.}