SW/HW Modelling and Analysis for Multiprocessor Embedded Systems: Methodology, tools and case studies

We present a framework and tools for modelling and performance analysis of multiprocessor embedded systems. Our framework consists of component-based models for modelling parallel software and multiprocessor hardware, and tools for code generation and performance analysis. The framework allows jointly analyzing software and hardware performance rather than evaluating each one in isolation. This joint evaluation enables predicting the impact of hardware on software performance and the ability of hardware performance to accommodate future services at design time. The framework component model relies on transaction-level description of hardware and programmer-level description of software. We apply the framework for analyzing the performance of several implementations of a MPEG-4 video encoding on custom multimedia hardware, Philips Wasabi/Cake NoC and IPv4 packet forwarding over the Intel dual IXP2800 NP. The experiments carried out on these real-life industrial-size applications show that our framework is scalable and delivers precise performance results with fast simulation speed. Read more