Leveraging model representations for system level design tools

New sophisticated EDA tools and methodologies are needed to make products viable in the marketplace by simplifying and reducing the different design stages. They are based on representations that have to be clean, complete and easy to manipulate. The needed key features are standardization, metadata programming, reflectivity and introspection. This work proposes a methodology based on .Net framework presenting all these features and allowing simpler specification, synthesis, validation and the creation of tools that cost less and take less time to build/customize. We present the simulator of ESys.Net as a case study. ESys.Net is an existing .Net based platform for system design.