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Architecture exploration and timing estimation during early design phases

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Abstract

Selecting the right computation hardware and configuration at the beginning of an industrial project is an important and highly risky task, which is usually done without much tool support, based on experience gathered from previous projects. We present TimingExplorer—a tool to assist in the exploration of alternative system configurations in early design phases. It is based on AbsInt’s WCET Analyser aiT and provides a selection of parametrisable cores that represent typical architectures of interest. Once some (representative) source code is available, TimingExplorer enables its users to take an informed decision which processor configurations are best suited for their needs. The usage of TimingExplorer facilitates the process of determining what processors to use and reduces the risk of timing problems becoming obvious only late in the development cycle and requiring a redesign of large parts of the system.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. AbsInt Angewandte Informatik GmbH, Science Park 1, 66123, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Reinhold Heckmann, Christian Ferdinand, Daniel Kästner & Stefana Nenova

Authors
  1. Reinhold Heckmann
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  2. Christian Ferdinand
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  3. Daniel Kästner
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  4. Stefana Nenova
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reinhold Heckmann.

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Heckmann, R., Ferdinand, C., Kästner, D. et al. Architecture exploration and timing estimation during early design phases. Int J Softw Tools Technol Transfer 15, 29–39 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-012-0248-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10009-012-0248-8

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