Optimal hardware/software co-synthesis for core-based SoC designs1

A hardware/software co-synthesis method is presented for SoC designs consisting of both hardware IP cores and software components on a graph-theoretic formulation. Given a SoC integrated with a set of functions and a set of performance factors, a core for each function is selected from a set of alternative IP cores and software components, and optimal partitions is found in a way to evenly balance the performance factors and to ultimately reduce the overall cost, size, power consumption and runtime of the core-based SoC. The algorithm formulates IP cores and components into the corresponding mathematical models, presents a graph-theoretic model for finding the optimal partitions of SoC design and transforms SoC hardware/software co-synthesis problem into finding optimal paths in a weighted, directed graph. Overcoming the three main deficiencies of the traditional methods, this method can work automatically, evaluate more performance factors at the same time and meet the particularity of SoC designs. At last, the approach is illustrated that is practical and effective through partitioning a practical system.