Simulation-based performance analysis of distributed systems

Performance analysis of distributed systems may be performed on different levels of abstraction. An accurate but time-consuming method is the construction of a simulation model which includes the different subsystems, the communication system, and the load profile. In particular, this approach seems to be very powerful for real-time systems because of the inherent possibility of precise calculations of delays and processing times. A VHDL-based approach is presented which supports the performance analysis of mixed discrete-continuous distributed systems.