Beginner Explanation
Imagine you’re building a toy robot. If you design the robot’s body (hardware) and its brain (software) separately, they might not fit together well. Hardware co-design is like working on both the body and the brain at the same time, ensuring they work perfectly together. This way, the robot can move faster and do more tricks because everything is designed to help each other out. It’s like making sure the wheels of a car are designed with the engine in mind, so they work well together and the car runs smoothly.Technical Explanation
Hardware co-design refers to the simultaneous development of hardware and software components to enhance system performance. This approach allows for optimizations that consider both domains, leading to better resource utilization and efficiency. For instance, when designing a digital signal processing (DSP) system, one might use high-level synthesis (HLS) tools to generate hardware from software algorithms. Here’s a simple example using a HLS tool: “`c #includeAcademic Context
Hardware co-design is a critical concept in embedded systems, where performance and power efficiency are paramount. The theoretical foundation lies in system-level design methodologies, which integrate hardware description languages (HDLs) and software programming languages. Key papers include “Hardware/Software Co-Design: Principles and Practice” by G. De Micheli and R. Gupta, which discusses various co-design methodologies and their implications. The mathematical foundations often involve optimization techniques in mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) to balance hardware and software constraints.Code Examples
Example 1:
#include <ap_int.h>
void my_dsp_function(ap_int<16> *input, ap_int<16> *output, int size) {
for(int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
output[i] = input[i] * 2; // Example operation
}
}Example 2:
for(int i = 0; i < size; i++) {
output[i] = input[i] * 2; // Example operation
}View Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16060v1