Hardware/software partitioning of embedded systems with multiple hardware processes
David C. Hendry, D.S. Sananikone · IEE Proceedings - Computers and Digital Techniques · 1997
COSYN is an hardware/software partitioning tool for embedded systems with multiple hardware processes. It produces a system hardware/software partition whilst satisfying system constraints, where feasible. COSYN uses a CIPN (coloured interpreted Petri net) to model systems, and to provide simulation data for the partitioning algorithm. The CIPN provides modelling capability for multiple processes and interprocess communication primitives. The partitioning algorithm, which adopts a fine-grained approach to system partitioning (it considers moving nodes at the basic block level), is based on selecting blocks based on their potential speedup and extra hardware requirements, using hardware and software execution time estimators. The interdependence between interprocess communication primitives is exploited to achieve a better hardware/software partition. Results for an input example pdi using different partitioning algorithms are given which illustrate the benefits of the approach presented in this paper.