High-level design of embedded hardware-software systems

This paper proposes methods, tools and results of application for hardware-software systems co-design, Methods include tuning selected or designing hardware for the following universal software tools: assembler-disassembler, C-compiler, and source-level debugger; providing super fast debugging of software for target architecture on an instrumental computer IBM PC or a compatible one. To design hardware in parallel with software, two special tools are presented. The first is a system for microprogram automation synthesis from a microprogram that is written on a special microassembler or subset of C and is debugged with the debugger that was mentioned earlier. The second tool is high-level chip computer aided design system. Both systems use software developed for target architecture as tests for designing hardware. This paper also contains description of application results that were produced using the proposed methods; and tools for developing two embedded apparatuses: "Remote data gathering from transducers" and "Ion measurement", that are based on microcontrollers NT8020 (NTL, Minsk, Belarus) and Intel 8051, respectively. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.