New Model and Algorithm for Hardware/Software Partitioning

This paper focuses on the algorithmic aspects for the hardware/software(HW/SW) partitioning which searches a reasonable composition of hardwareand software components which not only satisfies the constraint ofhardware area but also optimizes the execution time. The computationalmodel is extended so that all possible types of communications can betaken into account for the HW/SW partitioning. Also, a new dynamicprogramming algorithm is proposed on the basis of the computational model,in which source data, rather than speedup in previous work, of basicscheduling blocks are directly utilized to calculate the optimalsolution. The proposed algorithm runs in O(n\cdot A) for n codefragments and the available hardware area A. Simulation results showthat the proposed algorithm solves the HW/SW partitioning withoutincrease in running time, compared with the algorithm cited in theliterature.