A formal support for homogeneous simulation of heterogeneous embedded systems

In the context of component-based design, this paper proposes a framework, for managing embedded system heterogeneity, that enriches an interchange format, the Heterogeneous Intermediate Format (HIF), with the universal model of computation UNIVERCM. The framework supports bottom-up design, system integration, adaptation and reuse by allowing automatic translation of heterogeneous components, described by means of different languages and according to different MoCs, towards a uniform intermediate description based on a rigorous semantics. The goal of the paper is to show how traditional semantics aspects coming from HW description language models, analog models and embedded SW can be effectively captured by UNIVERCM to produce a homogeneous model from heterogeneous components.