A clustering technique to optimize hardware/software synchronization

In this paper we present a scheme for reducing the amount of synchronization overhead needed between components, after HW/SW partitioning, to preserve the original control flow of the specification. Since trace between components is expensive, our scheme can significantly enhance the performance of the system implementation. Our optimization technique dynamically groups the tasks in the specification such that synchronization for different tasks can be shared. The grouping depends on the partitioning decision, and hence, is performed during the generation of the partitioned model. We apply our grouping algorithm for various partitions on system level models of industry standard designs. The experimental results show significant reduction in synchronization overhead compared to the unoptimized model.