Techniques to evolve a C++ based system design language

Complex systems-on-chip present one of the most challenging design problems. To meet this challenge, new design languages capable of modelling such heterogeneous, dynamic systems are needed. For implementation of such a language, the use of an object oriented C++ class library has proven to be a promising approach, since new classes dealing with design- and platform-specific problems can be added in a conceptual and seamlessly reusable way. This paper shows the development of such an extension aimed to provide a platform-independent high-level structured storage object through hiding of the low-level implementation details. It results in a completely virtualised, user-extendible component, suitable for use in heterogeneous systems.