Automatic construction of models for analytic system-level design space exploration problems.

Due to the variety of application models and also the target platforms used in embedded electronic system design, it is challenging to formulate a generic and extensible analytic design-space exploration (DSE) framework. Current approaches support a restricted class of application and platform models and are difficult to extend. This paper proposes a framework for automatic construction of system-level DSE problem models based on a coherent, constraint-based representation of system functionality, flexible target platforms, and binding policies. Heterogeneous semantics is captured using constraints on logical clocks. The applicability of this method is demonstrated by constructing DSE problem models from different combinations of application and platforms models. Time-triggered and untimed models of the system functionality and heterogeneous target platforms are used for this purpose. Another potential advantage of this approach is that constructed models can be solved using a variety of standard and ad-hoc solvers and search heuristics.