A flexible and high-reliable HW/SW codesign method for real-time embedded systems

In this paper, we propose a flexible and high-reliable HW/SW co-design method for real-time systems consisting of multiple functional modules using general purpose components such as DSP, CPU and memory. In our method, we specify a system as a parallel composition of concurrent periodic EFSMs with timing constraints. As communication primitives among EFSMs, multi-way synchronization mechanism can be specified. Here, we propose a technique for efficient development of real-time embedded systems considering both reliability and cost-performance. For the purpose, using a parametric model checking technique, we derive a parameter condition which must hold for the system to proceed without deadlocks and satisfy given timing constraints. Based on the derived parameter condition and cost-performance characteristic of available components, an appropriate combination of components is automatically selected so that the total cost is minimized. We have developed a design support tool based on the proposed technique. By applying our method to development of a basic functionality of a cellular phone, we could decide which functional modules should be implemented as dedicated HW units or on-chip-CPUs´ software, and select suitable DSPs and memories with low costs.