SystemC co-simulation for core-based embedded systems

SystemC is becoming the reference language for hardware description in EDA community. It is suitable for describing hardware at several abstraction levels, and it can be used to develop devices for programmable, CPU-based, systems. In such a context, there are several requirements to meet. The hardware under development can be an extension module for an existing system, possibly with no knowledge on the actual system implementation. At the same time, the module to develop can be minded as a CPU-independent device that should be evaluated against different processors. Hence, the developer should leverage different techniques, depending on the development environment involved.