Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008 - (Page 17)

cover feature and that determinacy can be guaranteed. Implementation of multiple interfaces in software raises another challenge, that of parallel programming. The software must be capable of switching context fast enough to allow multiple tasks to run effectively simultaneously. TRANSLATING SOURCE CODE INTO OBJECT CODE This approach clearly will use an embedded software design ﬂow. However, we shouldn’t be too hasty to discard the collective knowledge surrounding hardware description languages (HDLs). HDLs have served our industry well and have evolved substantially from their origins. Perhaps most im- portantly, they have taught us that we can trust design tools to translate our high-level deﬁnition of functions into the low-level manufacturing details. When logic synthesis ﬁrst emerged it required a large leap of faith to go from trusted schematic symbols with their underlying transistors to the mysterious “netlist.” Those days are long past and designers have reasonably good faith that their design intent will migrate into the target device. There is, however, a fundamental problem with describing hardware. To achieve reasonable results in a target device, it’s often necessary to embed substantial “understanding” of the silicon details in the deﬁnition of the functions. This embedding is required so the tools can be guided into the best choices amongst many, avoiding certain known-bad results. This handcrafting requires substantial expertise and means that the design object will be ﬂavored with the characteristics of the presumed target. By this deﬁnition, HDLs are not really “description” languages per se; they are used much more to guide the actual implementation. MAKING HDL DEFINITION MORE LIKE SOFTWARE COMPILATION Although software designers have been using the tools of their trade for as long as hardware engineers have used their own tools, these two sets of tools have evolved along different paths. Because 17 www.embedded.com/europe | embedded systems design europe | APRIL 2008 015-016-017-018-019_ESDE.indd 17 9/04/08 13:18:56 http://www.embedded.com/europe

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Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008 Contents Chip Industry Confronts 'Software' Gap Wind River's VxWorks OS Part of the nEUROn UCAV Demonstrator iSuppli Cuts Electronic Equipment Forecast Study Says GigE Vision Not Mature Chip Aids Wireless Health Monitoring Kontron Reports Strong Financial Growth Xilinx Completes Virtex-5 Line-Up French Project Builds Open Platform Home Automation Group Uses Enocean Radio Layer MIPs Adds Multi-Core Option to Portfolio Cover Feature: Next Gen Programmable Chips: Why Can't Hardware Be More Like Software? Improving Productivity & Quality With Domain-Specific Modeling Efficient CRC Calculation With Minimal Memory Footprint Do-It-Yourself Linux Embedded Development Tools Hardware/Software Verification Enters the Atomic Age New Products Advertising Contacts

Embedded Systems Design Europe - April 2008

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