Model-integrated Tools for the Design of Dynamically Reconfigurable Systems

Several classes of modern applications demand very high performance from systemswith minimal resources. These applications must also be flexible to operate in a rapidlychanging environment. Achieving high performance from limited resources demandsapplication-specific architectures, while flexibility requires architectural adaptationcapabilities. Reconfigurable computing devices promise to meet both needs. While thesedevices are currently available, the issue of how to design these systems is unresolved.This paper describes an environment for design capture, analysis and synthesis ofdynamically adaptive computing applications. The representation methodology is capturedin a Domain-Specific, Model-Integrated Computing framework. Formal analysistools are integrated into the design flow to analyze the design space to produce aconstrained set of solutions. HW/SW Co-simulations verify the function of the systemprior to implementation. Finally, a set of hardware and software subsystems aresynthesized to implement the multi-modal, dynamically adaptive application. The applicationexecutes under a runtime environment, which supports common executionsemantics across software and hardware. An application example is presented