Why can´t hardware be more like software?

This paper describes how the potential mass market for information appliances will require a new set of hardware-software codesign tools aimed at fast -time-to-market and utilising macrofunction libraries. It indicates that tools are required for the macrofunction development, which differ from system tools, and resemble the behavioural compilers of today. Appliance developers would like to see the automation of the system engineering, leaving the engineers to do the system definition, and specific technology evolution, required for their products. It has also been stated that appliance developers are willing to accept the inefficiencies associated with macrofunctions, in a similar manner to the way that software developers treat memory. Utilising tools that permit the simple integration of these macrofunctions, much in the same way that complex software systems are developed today, will allow products to be generated successfully. For the partitioning case in particular, tools will be required for both development paths: partitioning at the system level will involve manipulating macrofunctions; partitioning for macrofunction development will involve the accurate modelling of architectures for algorithm implementation