We can hardly imaging our daily life without Computer systems, since they are present in many day-to-day life situations. With each generation of computer systems, that are developed, the demand of capability increases. This applies especially to embedded systems - world-wide the most common computer systems. Long operation times, small required space and many functions are probably the most important technical design criteria for such systems. From a commercial point of view, it is very important that the product comes at the right time on the market (Time-to-market), so that optimal profits can be gained. In order to further satisfy the requirements in the future it is necessary to explore new concepts and modeling techniques. These techniques have to be implemented and tested in practical applications.

 

Embedded systems such as described above are very often present in the automotive industry and mobile communication systems. Examples are ASR (Anti Slip Regulation), Airbag or mobile data collection. Systems from these domains must be always tested for their correctness and reliability during the design, since many of them fulfill essential tasks. It is a dominant trend that individual subsystems are ever more networked and merge into an overall system. Apart from the functions, communication in these networked systems serves the increasing safety requirements in automobiles. This leads to heterogeneous systems, which are to analyze is far more difficult than homogeneous systems (different signal latencies, analog components, etc.).

 

New modeling concepts promise to solve the mentioned problems. Particularly the system description language SystemC with the TLM approach (Transaction Level Modeling) offers good preconditions. By means of the abstraction, which is offered by the TLM approach, it is possible to exclude irrelevant information during the design flow.

 

 

The overall aim of the BMBF-supported cooperative project is to enhance design methods. In particular the design of complex heterogeneous systems should be simplified. In order to minimize the design time and the design costs concepts and prototype tools, allowing to design and to evaluate embedded systems faster, better and more reliably, are developed.

OFFIS works as subcontractor for the Robert Bosch GmbH in the context of the project VISION. In this context OFFIS explores approaches for advanced design processes for heterogeneous embedded systems. On the one hand a SystemC-based verification concept is developed and on the other hand a XML/XSLT-based concept for the design manipulation is explored. The final goal of the project is to developed concepts and prototypes which can be integrated in the production design process of the Robert Bosch GmbH.