Separating Modeling and Simulation Aspects in Hardware/Software System Design

Many are working on the productivity gap problem affecting the Electronic Design Automation. None of the current paths seems to be a silver bullet but object-oriented framework-based solutions such as SystemC are gaining a great deal of momentum and acceptance. Despite all the efforts which have been spent one the development of these types of solutions, as well as the numerous satellite tools which add a lot of value to the approach; very few efforts have been spent on the cornerstone task of investigating which software design techniques and technologies should be used to develop effective framework-based solutions. The main objective of the article is to present how new software engineering technologies may be used to create better framework-based modeling solutions by promoting separation of concerns between modeling and simulation aspects.