An object-oriented refinement methodology through the design of a settop-box

We present an object-oriented approach to optimize the design now of embedded systems targeted for the fast growing multimedia application market. We start with a high-level model of the system written in SystemC and propose design guidelines to optimize the top-down design flow leading to the system implementation. We highlight the usefulness of C++ expressiveness in mixed hardware-software systems design. We show how a strict separation of the internal behavior from the interface behavior of the design components combined with SystemC and CoWare solves many important codesign issues such as providing seamless IP reuse and a clear refinement methodology to achieve the final synthesizable hardware and compiled software blocks with minimal re-coding effort. We propose to explore those possibilities through a settop-box case study.