Service dependency graph: an efficient model for hardware/software interfaces modeling and generation for SoC design

• Main Authors: Sarmento, Adriano, Kriaa, Lobna, Grasset, Arnaud, Youssef, Mohamed-Wassim, Bouchhima, Aimen, Rousseau, Frederic, Cesario, Wander, Jerraya, Ahmed Amine
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer aided instruction; Computer interfaces; Computer systems organization > Embedded and cyber-physical systems; Computer systems organization > Real-time systems; Costs; Design automation; Hardware; hardware/software interfaces; interface design automation; Laboratories; Laser sintering; Middleware; MPEG 4 Standard; service-based model; systems-on-chip; Time to market
• DOI: 10.1145/1084834.1084900

Complex systems-on-chip are designed by interconnecting pre-designed hardware (HW) and software (SW) components. During the design cycle, a global model of the SoC may be composed of HW and SW models at different abstraction levels. Designing HW/SW interfaces to interconnect SoC components is a source of design bottlenecks. This paper describes a service-based model enabling systematic design and co-simulation of HW/SW interfaces for SoC design. This model, called Service dependency graph (SDG) allows modeling of complex and application-specific interfaces. We present also a model generator that can automatically build HW/SW interfaces based on service and resource requirements described by the SDG. This approach has been applied successfully on the design of an MPEG-4 encoder. Additionally the SDG seems to be an excellent intermediate representation for the design automation of HW/SW interfaces.