A codesign virtual machine for hierarchical, balanced hardware/software system modeling

Abstract

The Codesign Virtual Machine (CVM) is introduced as a next generation system modeling semantic. The CVM permits unrestricted system-wide software and hardware behaviors to be designed to a single scheduling semantic by resolving time-based (resource) and time-independent (state-interleaved) models of computation. CVM hierarchical relationships of bus and clock state domains provide a means of exploring hardware/software scheduling trade-offs to a consistent semantic model using top-down, bottom-up and iterative design approaches from a high system level to the machine implementation. State domain partitionings permit run-time software schedulers to be resolved with design time physical scheduling as peer- and hierarchically-related architectural abstractions which cut across functional boundaries. The resultant abstraction provides “component-less” paths to physical design with greater accommodation of shared resource modeling. A simulation example is included.