Hardware/Software partitioning of embedded computer systems

Sammanfattning: The codesign of embedded computer systems involving hardware and softwarecomponents has received lot of attention in the recent years. There are several differentapproaches to solve the codesign problem. The approach adopted in this thesisis to implement non time critical parts in software that is executed on somestandard processor and implement the performance critical parts in hardware. Thiskeeps the amount of self designed hardware small and thus the implementationeffort low. The flexibility is kept high since a large part of the system is implementedin software.This thesis presents a hardware/software partitioning algorithm and three case studies(two from the telecommunication field and one X-windows Mandelbrot plotter)on hardware/software codesign. The partitioning algorithm is based on a knapsackstuffing algorithm which selects a partition of hardware and software which givesthe highest system speed-up with the lowest gate cost. The proposed method, partitiona C/C++ executable description based on several analysis results; executionprofiling, hardware estimations and estimated parameter transfer times.The three case studies show results and experience from the analysis tools, partitioningtools, verification methods and prototyping environment. The case studiesare:- D-AMPS Channel Decoder, channel decoder functionality in a D-AMPS cellularphone base station.- F4 model, operation and maintenance functionality of the ATM protocol.- Mandelbrot plotter, X-windows Mandelbrot set plotter.