System-level Design Overview

Principles

Definition

System-level design is a methodological approach focused on defining the overall structure, behavior, and interfaces of a complex system. It operates at a high level of abstraction, investigating how major components interact and integrate to achieve system-wide properties and objectives, thereby managing complexity and ensuring holistic functionality.

Ontological type

Core Methods

Interface Management

Architectural Frameworks

Key developments

Key Figures

Automated System-Level Synthesis era

Mary Shaw [1] was a leading figure at Carnegie Mellon University [3] during the Automated System-Level Synthesis era. Mary Shaw's [1] 1995 work 'Abstractions for software architecture and tools to support them' [6] introduced high-level architectural abstractions and toolchains, enabling modular design and automated exploration of architectural options, which was crucial for translating specifications into hardware/software structures in this era. Rolf Ernst [2] was associated with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg [4] and Technische Universität Braunschweig [5] during this era. Rolf Ernst's [2] 1993 paper 'Hardware-software cosynthesis for microcontrollers' [7] proposed hardware/software cosynthesis techniques that integrated design space exploration and co-design of embedded systems, a development that accelerated feasibility validation and real-time performance assessment in the era.

Platform-Based MPSoC Design era

Alberto Sangiovanni‐Vincentelli [1] is associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [3] and the University of California, San Diego [4] during this era. In this era, his work on System-level design: orthogonalization of concerns and platform-based design [6], System design: traditional concepts and new paradigms [7], and Formal models for embedded system design [8] advanced reusable, platform-based MPSoC architectures by enabling early modeling, verification, and exploration of mapping and timing. David Culler [2] is associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [3] and the University of California, Los Angeles [5] during this era. His key contribution in this era includes Mica: a wireless platform for deeply embedded networks [9], which catalyzed deeply embedded networking and informed energy-aware platform design for scalable MPSoCs.

Digital Twin Driven MBSE era

Jason Cong [1] is a leading researcher affiliated with the University of California, San Diego [3] and the University of California, Los Angeles [4]. His contributions include High-Level Synthesis for FPGAs: From Prototyping to Deployment [7], which advanced the deployment of FPGA-based accelerators beyond prototyping, and Automatic memory partitioning and scheduling for throughput and power optimization [8], which improved resource utilization and energy efficiency in hardware design. Edward A. Lee [2] is a distinguished scholar affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley [5] and Berkeley College [6]. His key contribution in 2011 is Modeling Cyber–Physical Systems [9], a foundational framework that integrates computational and physical dynamics for cross-domain system modeling and verification, underpinning the digital twin–driven MBSE paradigm.