Abstract

Hardware/software codesign investigates the concurrent design of hardware and

sof t war e components of complex electronic systems. It tries t o exploit the
synergy of hardware and software with the goal to optimize and/or satisfy design
constraints such as cost, performance, and power of the final product. At the same
time, it targets to reduce the time-to- market frame consideraly. !his paper
presents ma"or achievements of two decades of research on methods and tools
for hardware/software codesign y starting with a historical survey of its roots,
y highlighting its ma"or research directions and achievements until today, and
finally, y predicting in which direction research in codesign might evolve
in the decades to come.
i