System specification and synthesis with the SpecCharts language

There is a need for capturing behavioral specifications of entire systems and obtaining multi-chip designs from those specifications. The authors discuss system level specification and synthesis issues, along with the unique requirements they place on a specification language. Since no current language meets those requirements, the SpecCharts language was created on top of VHDL (VHSIC Hardware Description Language). The SpecCharts language permits concise, understandable, and accurate specification of systems while supporting the concept of behavioral hierarchy, which considerably aided the specification of hardware systems modeled by the authors. Its constructs aid system level synthesis tasks such as partitioning, estimation, interface synthesis, and bus merging by permitting high level communication, and maintaining information and permitting modification at the level at which most modelers think at.<>