The importance of interfaces: a HW/SW codesign case study

This paper presents a codesign case study in image analysis. The main objective is to stress the importance of handling HW/SW interfaces more precisely at the system level. In the presented case study, there is an intuitive and simple HW/SW interface, which is based upon the functional modules in the application. However, it is found that this seemingly sound choice caused a number of practical problems and sub-optimal solutions during the implementation of the prototype system.