A unifying approach to CoDesign

Basic arguments are described to create a unified Co-Design environment. A unique feature is the use of a single language to describe systems. Different subsets describe hardware, both structure and behavior, as well as software. It vividly shows that software and hardware are much more alike than usually perceived. Borders between the different descriptions now become artificial, meaning we can walk much more freely in the design space. Also our tools benefit from the unification: we need fewer of them and they are inherently more general. Recent developments in functional languages, integrating functional and imperative languages, made this approach practical for the first time. The tool we are developing is intended to stimulate the integration of software and hardware design tools into genuine Co-Design tools. The use of a modern typed functional language such as Haskell also makes the language into a broad spectrum Co-Design language