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Metamodeling and Code Generation in the Hardware/Software Interface Domain

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Handbook of Hardware/Software Codesign

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Abstract

In the HW/SW interface domain, specification of memory architecture and software-accessible hardware registers are both relevant for the implementation of hardware and the firmware running on it. Automated code generation of both HW and SW artifacts from a shared data source is a well-established method to ensure consistency. Metamodeling is a key technology to ease such code generation and to formalize the data structures target code is generated from. While this can be utilized for a wide range of automation and generation tasks, it is particularly useful for bridging the HW/SW design gap.

Metamodeling is the basis for the construction of large model-driven automation solutions that go far beyond simple code generation solutions. Based on the formalization metamodels provide, models can be incrementally transformed and combined to create more refined models for particular design tasks. IP-XACT and UML /SysML can be utilized within the scope of metamodeling . The utilization of these standards and the development of custom metamodels – targeted to specific design tasks – have proven to be highly successful and promise large potential for further productivity increase.

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Abbreviations

AHB:

Advanced High-performance Bus

APB:

Advanced Peripheral Bus

API:

Application Programming Interface

AST:

Abstract Syntax Tree

AXI:

Advanced eXtensible Interface

BNF:

Backus-Naur Form

CIM:

Computation Independent Model

CPU:

Central Processing Unit

DMA:

Direct Memory Access

EBNF:

Extended Backus-Naur Form

EDA:

Electronic Design Automation

EMF:

Eclipse Modeling-Framework

GUI:

Graphical User Interface

HDL:

Hardware Description Language

HLS:

High-Level Synthesis

HTML:

Hypertext Markup Language

HW:

Hardware

IEEE:

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IP:

Intellectual Property

JSON:

JavaScript Object Notation

MDA:

Model-Driven Architecture

MoC:

Model of Computation

MOF:

Meta Object Facility

OCL:

Object Constraint Language

OMG:

Object Management Group

PIM:

Platform Independent Model

PSM:

Program State Machine

RTL:

Register Transfer Level

SoC:

System-on-Chip

SPI:

Serial Peripheral Interface

SW:

Software

TLM:

Transaction-Level Model

UML:

Unified Modeling Language

VHDL:

VHSIC Hardware Description Language

VHSIC:

Very High Speed Integrated Circuit

XMI:

XML Metadata Interchange

XML:

Extensible Markup Language

XSD:

XML Schema

XSLT:

Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Infineon Technologies AG, Am Campeon 1-12, 85579, Neubiberg, Germany

    Wolfgang Ecker & Johannes Schreiner

Authors
  1. Wolfgang Ecker
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  2. Johannes Schreiner
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Ecker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Soonhoi Ha

  2. Department of Computer Science, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany

    Jürgen Teich

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Ecker, W., Schreiner, J. (2017). Metamodeling and Code Generation in the Hardware/Software Interface Domain. In: Ha, S., Teich, J. (eds) Handbook of Hardware/Software Codesign. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7267-9_32

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