TITLE:   Assessing the Feqsibility of Interface 
	 Designs before their Implementation
	 
AUTHORS: Marco A. Escalante and Nikitas J. Dimopoulos
	 
IN:      Proceedings of ASO-DAC'95 Asian and South 
	 Pacific Design Automation Conference, 
	 Makuhari Messe, Japan, Aug., 1995  

	 

ABSTRACT 

During the design of microprocessor-based systems, 
once the system architecture has been decided and 
the major components (processors, memories, 
IO devices) have been selected from a component 
library, it is necessary to design interface logic
to integrate the system. Such an interface design 
can be carried out based on the protocols used by 
the components. This paper addresses the problem 
of determining the feasibility of a design prior 
to synthesis. A design is called feasible if it 
achieves the desired functionality and satisfies 
the given environmental constraints. Because timing
is an important aspect of a correct design, protocols
are described using timed signal transition graphs,
an interpreted Petri net. It Is shown here that the
feasibility of designs whose corresponding behavior
is periodic can be studied using a technique called
timing analysis for synthesis.