Criticality-driven Design Space Exploration for Mixed-Criticality Heterogeneous Parallel Embedded Systems

Heterogeneous platforms are becoming widely diffused in the embedded system area, mainly because of the opportunities to increase application execution performance and, at the same time, to optimize other orthogonal metrics. In such a context, the introduction of mixed-criticality constraints, while considering heterogenous parallel architectures, creates new challenges to industrial and academic research. The main design issue is related to a Design Space Exploration (DSE) approach able to cope with mixed-criticality constraints that typically limits the number of feasible solutions. So, this work1 focuses on DSE for embedded systems based on heterogeneous parallel architectures and subjected to mixed-criticality constraints. In particular, it presents a criticality-driven evolutionary approach integrated into a reference Electronic System Level HW/SW Co-Design flow to support the designer of mixed-criticality embedded systems.