Improving embedded system design by means of HW-SW compilation on reconfigurable coprocessors

This article describes a new approach to HW-SW codesign for complex embedded systems, using high-level programming languages. Unlike in previous approaches, the designer does not need to acquire new skills, because most of the design process is automated. The hardware extensions are implemented as simple coprocessors consisting of a reconfigurable datapath and a control memory. Our approach is demonstrated with a simple image processing application, obtaining a 100% performance improvement.