Treffer: The Design of Mixed Hardware/Software Systems

Over the past several years there has been a great deal of interest in the design of mixed hardware/software systems, sometimes referred to as hardware/software co-design or hardware/software co-synthesis. However, although many new design methodologies have taken the name hardware/software co-design, they often do not seem to share much in common with one another. This partly due to the fact that the problem itself has so many dimensions. This tutorial describes a set of criteria that can be used to compare differing approaches to hardware/software co-design. These criteria are used in the discussion of a number of published hardware/software co-design techniques to illustrate how a wide range of approaches can be viewed within a single framework. 1 Introduction Because of the growing complexity of digital systems and the availability of a variety of implementation technologies, many digital systems today are mixed hardware/software systems. The hardware and software elements may be .