SpecCharts: a VHDL front-end for embedded systems

Abstract

VHDL and other hardware description languages are commonly used as speci cation languages during system design. However, the underlying model of those languages does not directly support the speci cation of embedded systems, making the task of specifying such systems tedious and errorprone. We introduce a new conceptual model, called Program-State Machines (PSM), that caters to embedded systems. We describe SpecCharts, a VHDL extension that supports capture of the PSM model. The extensions we describe can also be applied to other languages. SpecCharts can be easily incorporated into a VHDL design environment using automatic translation to VHDL. We highlight several experiments that demonstrate the advantages of signi cantly reduced speci cation time, fewer errors, and improved speci cation readability.

A quick safari through the reconfiguration jungle

“…The advantages of a hierarchical control specification have been advocated before [9]. They include better control on complexity and increased reuse opportunities.…”

A novel codesign methodology for real-time embedded COTS multiprocessor-based signal processing systems

“…Gajski, Vahid, et al developed a hardware/software codesign methodology appropriate to their application domain, along with associated system design language with supporting tools [1,2], which they called "Search-Explore-Refine" (SER). Their methodology is similar to describe-and-synthesize, except that the requirements specification is captured in an executable language called SpecCharts, which they developed.…”

SpecSyn: an environment supporting the specify-explore-refine paradigm for hardware/software system design

“…No one language directly supports all characteristics, but hybrid models and languages that extend the number of supported characteristics, such as PSM and SpecCharts, seem to be a step in the right direction. For more information on PSM and SpecCharts, we refer the reader to [6] and [8].…”

“…Because a program-state is not just a state but also a computation, two types of arcs are required: transition-on-completion (TOC), which is traversed when the computation has completed, and transition-immediately (TI), which is traversed when the arc event occurs, regardless of the computation stage. We also developed the SpecCharts language, which is an extension to VHDL, to capture the PSM model [6]. SpecCharts can be translated automatically to VHDL, which will be more complex than the original SpecCharts, but is simulatable and (ideally) synthesizable in a VHDL environment.…”