A Microprogrammed Approach for Implementing Statecharts

Statechart diagrams allow specifying complex systems in which there may be several states active at the same time and a large number of events and transitions to evaluate. Statecharts have been found useful in the design and implementation of control systems in research facilities, such as particle accelerators. Automatic tools may convert statechart-based specifications into hardware descriptions. During the development of one of those tools, the convenience of implementing statecharts as microprogrammed control systems was considered. In this work, we propose a method for implementing generic microprogrammed architectures that support statecharts upgradable on the field. This approach is evaluated showing its advantages and disadvantages.