HASoC—Towards a New Method for System-on-a-Chip Development

We present a novel method (HASoC) for developing embedded systems that are targeted at system-on-a-chip implementations. The object-oriented development method is based on the experiences of using our existing MOOSE technique and supports a lifecycle that explicitly separates the behavior of a system from its implementation technology. The design process, whichuses a notation based on extensions to UML-RT, begins with the incremental development and validation of an abstract executable model of a system. Subsequently, this model is partitioned into hardware and software sub-systems to create a committed model, which is mapped onto a system platform that defines the implementation environment. The methodology emphasizes the reuse of pre-existing hardware and software platforms to ease the development process. A partial example application is presented in order to illustrate the main concepts in our methodology.