Performance analysis for a Java-based virtual prototype

For the development of complex microelectronic systems with real-time requirements, shortened time-to-market and reduced budgets, virtual prototyping is essential for an efficient design process. These initial prototypes can be used to efficiently check design alternatives, to validate the functionality and to find time and cost critical parts of the system. To meet these requirements an initial software specification with Java is proposed in this paper. It will be shown that the inherent features of the Java language combined with the proposed extensions provide a powerful design environment for building and analysing an initial prototype. Experimental results underline the efficiency of the presented approach.