A codesign environment supporting hardware/software modeling at different levels of detail

Hybrid modeling is a technique that integrates performance and behavioral models within a common simulation. This approach allows behavioral components, containing mixtures of hardware and software, to be evaluated within the context of the system being developed. Hybrid interfaces are required to integrate the behavioral models with the performance models. This paper presents Honeywell's VHDL-based approach to codesign using hybrid modeling. The structure of the hybrid interface is described, and a hybrid interface for a processor model is presented. A four processor Myrinet example is provided to illustrate hardware/software modeling at different levels of detail. We are evaluating our methodology using an internal application.