A multi-level transformation approach to HW/SW codesign: a case study

This reported work applies a transformational synthesis approach to hardware/software codesign. In this approach, the process of algorithm design is coupled early on with hardware design to allow for a complete design space exploration. Both the specification and the transformation mechanisms are encoded in a functional notation, called form, which facilitates algorithmic derivation, structural transformation and verification. In the algorithmic derivation phase, possible computational schedules for a given application function are generated from a partial specification of the target architecture. At the hardware level, structural transformations are applied to explore possible datapath designs, where different designs yield different performance and cost. Other design metrics such as interface buffer size, software code size and data size etc. are also included to determine analytically a hardware/software partition.