Hardware/Software Communication Middleware for Data Adaptable Embedded Systems

Abstract

Recent trends toward increased flexibility and configurability in emerging applications present demanding challenges for implementing systems that incorporate such capabilities. The resulting application configuration space is generally much larger than any one hardware implementation can support. We present an overview of a new data-adaptive approach to rapid design and implementation of such highly configurable applications. In support of this data-adaptable approach, we demonstrate an efficient and flexible hardware/software communication middleware to support the seamless communication between hardware and software tasks at runtime. We highlight the flexibility of this interface and present an initial case study with results demonstrating the performance capabilities and area requirements.