Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

Raising the level of abstraction to the system level has been touted as the main solution for closing the productivity gap designers of embedded systems-on-chip (SOCs) are facing increasingly. However, in order to achieve the required productivity gains, a well-defined methodology enabling a synthesis-oriented flow is necessary. The basis for every methodology are clear and unambiguous models at different levels of abstraction.

In this report, we will define the four models that comprise the SpecC system-level design methodology. Using actual code templates, we will show their features and properties in detail. All together, this report provides comprehensive guidelines for modeling a design at each level. In addition to standardizing manually written models, the exact definition of the models builds the basis of all automated tools for exploration, refinement, synthesis or verification.