Hardware/Software Co-design of Communication Protocols

An important aspect in providing high performance distributed systems such as multimedia systems is the combined use of hardware and software in the end systems. System design techniques should allow hardware/software co-design to integrate both means of implementation. In this paper, we show how the standardized formal language Estelle can be used to facilitate co-design. The system will first be designed in Estelle. At the point in time of final decision on which parts to implement in software and which in hardware, the original specification will be split into several partial specifications. The software parts are translated into C code, while the hardware parts are translated into VHDL code for further analysis and development. We present a tool environment which supports the protocol developer in the design and implementation process. A simple Video-on-Demand example shows the usefulness of the tool environment

A Graphical Representation And Prototype Editor For The Formal Description Technique Estelle

: This paper presents a graphical representation for the Formal Description Technique Estelle, which has up until now been restricted to a textual syntax based on the general programming language Pascal. The graphical syntax and semantics of the representation are fully descriptive of a general Estelle system and complies with the ISO Estelle standard [ISO97]. This representation aims to become a standard technique for formally specifying and simultaneously documenting concurrent, communicating systems. Conventions introduced in existing graphical Estelle tools are re-used, as are graphical concepts which have become familiar through widespread use of the similar Specification and Description Language (SDL). In addition, we present a syntax-directed editor based on the graphical syntax. The editor enables practical application of the graphical technique, by translating a graphical description to the equivalent textual form which can be input into existing Estelle tools. T..