Model-driven toolset for embedded reconfigurable cores: Flexible prototyping and software-like debugging

Improvements in system cost, size, performance, power dissipation, and design turnaround time are the key benefits offered by System-on-Chip designs. However they come at the cost of an increased complexity and long development cycles. Integrating reconfigurable cores offers a way to increase their...

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Veröffentlicht in:Science of computer programming Jg. 96; S. 156 - 174
Hauptverfasser: Lagadec, Loïc, Teodorov, Ciprian, Le Lann, Jean-Christophe, Picard, Damien, Fabiani, Erwan
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Elsevier B.V 15.12.2014
Elsevier
Schlagworte:
Computation and Language
Computer Science
Debugging
Embedded Systems
Model-driven
Reconfigurable computing
Software engineering
System-on-Chip
Reconfigurable computing
Model-driven
System-on-Chip
Debugging
Software engineering
ISSN:0167-6423, 1872-7964
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Zusammenfassung:Improvements in system cost, size, performance, power dissipation, and design turnaround time are the key benefits offered by System-on-Chip designs. However they come at the cost of an increased complexity and long development cycles. Integrating reconfigurable cores offers a way to increase their flexibility and lifespan. However the integration of embedded reconfigurable units poses a number of unique challenges in terms of design-space exploration and system exploitation. Over the last few years, model-driven engineering has become one of the most promising methodologies for tackling such challenging software problems. This paper presents Biniou, a model-driven toolset for embedded reconfigurable core modeling. Biniou is a major step ahead of the Madeo framework that was one of the rare non-commercial environments targeting reconfigurable design automation. In Biniou, the design space is broadened with (re-)configuration modeling aspects, and the exploitation tools are enhanced through the use of multi-level simulation and high-level debugging. These advancements are illustrated through a case-study focused on the design-space exploration of a coarse-grained reconfigurable architecture and through an examination of the integration of the debug-specific features into the framework. The main benefits of the presented toolset are: efficient domain-space exploration (validation), software design-kit generation (usability), software-like debug facilities (verification). •We model embedded reconfigurable cores.•We consider modeling the configuration plane.•We generate a fully-featured prototype.•We offer an object-oriented view of the prototype.•We support high-level debugging through observability, traceability and controllability.
ISSN:0167-6423
1872-7964
DOI:10.1016/j.scico.2014.02.015