A UML-based approach for heterogeneous IP integration

ABSTRACT

With increasing availability of predefined IP (Intellectual Properties) blocks and inexpensive microprocessors, embedded system designers are faced with more design choices than ever. On the other hand, there is a constant pressure on reducing the time to market. However, as the IP blocks are provided by different vendors, they differ in their interfaces. In order to improve design reuse, methods for combining heterogeneous IP blocks with incompatible protocols and I/Os are needed. In this paper, we propose an interface synthesis method that uses the UML notation to model the interfaces of predefined components and glue logic within the standard OCP-compliant environment. We built a code generator to produce the interface adapters from the UML models. We experimented with our approach using simple-bus and a MPEG-2 decoder as case studies.

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