Combining UML2 application and systemC platform modelling for performance evaluation of real-time embedded systems

Future mobile devices will be based on heterogeneous multiprocessing platforms accommodating several stand-alone applications. The network-on-chip communication and device networking combine the design challenges of conventional distributed systems and resource constrained real-time embedded systems. Interoperable design space exploration for both the application and platform development is required. Application designer needs abstract platform models to rapidly check the feasibility of a new feature or application. Platform designer needs abstract application models for defining platform computation and communication capacities. We propose a layered UML application/workload and SystemC platform modelling approach that allow application and platform to be modelled at several levels of abstraction, which enables early performance evaluation of the resulting system. The overall approach has been experimented with a mobile video player case study, while different load extraction methods have been validated by applying them to MPEG-4 encoder, Quake2 3D game, and MP3 decoder case studies previously.