SHIM

Abstract

Typical embedded hardware/software systems are implemented using a combination of C and an hdl such as Verilog. While each is well-behaved in isolation, combining the two gives a nondeterministic model whose ultimate behavior must be validated through expensive (cycle-accurate) simulation.We propose an alternative for describing such systems. Our shim (software/hardware integration medium) model, effectively Kahn networks with rendezvous communication, provides deterministic concurrency. We present the Tiny-shim language for such systems and its semantics, demonstrate how to implement it in hardware and software, and discuss how it can be used to model a real-world system.By providing a powerful, deterministic formalism for expressing systems, designing systems and verifying their correctness will become easier.