Methodology for an Early Exploration of Embedded Systems using Portable Test and Stimulus Standard

The complexity of modern embedded systems, especially in the areas of health, Internet of Things (IoT), or Cyber Physical Systems is continuously increasing. Due to simultaneously decreasing time to market, methods and techniques for a disciplined early Design Space Exploration (DSE) become mandatory. Recently, the Portable Test and Stimulus Standard (PSS) was introduced as a more abstract level to describe test intend, helping with software driven verification of complex systems. Our work aims at its use early in the design cycle, which still suffers from non-optimal representation of applications namely regarding expressiveness, early availability, reuse and path to implementation. Following an analysis of recent work, we propose an early DSE methodology based on PSS following the Y-chart to tackle before mentioned aspects. From a UML like description of a high-end hearing aid algorithm, we show the first needed steps to create valid application-to-architecture mappings, which can be used for further trade-off analysis and reused within and between common development cycles.