Asynchronous wrappers configuration within GALS systems specified by Petri nets

This paper presents a model-based development approach to support automatic code generation for Globally-Asynchronous Locally-Synchronous (GALS) embedded systems. FPGA-based platforms are used to validate the proposed approach. The GALS system behavior must be specified using a class of Petri nets, which allows the specification of the components and how they interact. A verification tool is used to automatically obtain the characteristics of the communication infrastructure, namely the buffer size required to implement the asynchronous wrappers interconnecting the set of components of the GALS system. With this information, VHDL generator tools are used to automatically generate the code that implement the controllers and the communication interface, making the integration between them. An application example is used to support the proposed model-based development approach presentation.