Hardware-Software Co-Design of Embedded Systems: The POLIS Approach

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Embedded systems are informally defined as a collection of programmable parts surrounded by ASICs and other standard components, that interact continuously with an environment through sensors and actuators. The programmable parts include micro-controllers and Digital Signal Processors (DSPs). Embedded systems are often used in life-critical situations, where reliability and safety are more important criteria than performance. Today, embedded systems are designed with an ad hoc approach that is heavily based on earlier experience with similar products and on manual design. Use of higher-level languages such as C helps structure the design somewhat, but with increasing complexity it is not sufficient. Formal verification and automatic synthesis of implementations are the surest ways to guarantee safety. Thus, the POLIS system which is a co-design environment for embedded systems is based on a formal model of computation. POLIS was initiated in 1988 as a research project at the University of California at Berkeley and, over the years, grew into a full design methodology with a software system supporting it.