Hardware software codesign of the Xilinx microkernel

In this paper, we describe work in progress on a methodology for the hardware-software codesign of the Xilinx Micro-Kernel leveraging the Xilinx Platform Studio (XPS) [1]. Combined with the Microblaze [2] soft-processor and the XPS system design framework, XMK is an ideal target for hardware acceleration due its modular design and configurability. Our methodology will target FPGA devices for programmable processor systems and target the fine-grain, yet, efficient hardware-software partitioning that is possible. We present our vision for the entire framework, which can address system level issues as well.