Hardware/Software interface codesign for embedded systems

Technological evolution-particularly shrinking silicon fabrication geometries-is enabling the integration of complex platforms in a single system on,chip. In addition to specific hardware subsystems, a modern SoC also can include one or several CPU sub- systems to execute software and sophisticated interconnects. Mastering the design of these embedded systems challenges both the system and semiconductor houses that used to apply a software- or hardware-only strategy. In addition to classic software and hardware, SoC engineers must design hardware-dependent software and software-dependent hardware. Codesigning these HW/SW interfaces requires a new kind of engineer who understands both hardware and software design. Providing SoCs consisting of an assembly of processors executing tasks concurrently will require design methodologies to focus on selecting and using either programmable or dedicated processors in place of the gates and arithmetic logic units that current methods use.