Specifications and Modeling

How can we describe the system which we would like to design, and how can we represent intermediate design information? Models and description techniques for initial specifications as well as for intermediate design information will be shown in this chapter. First of all, we will capture requirements for modeling techniques. Next, we will provide an overview of models of computation. This will be followed by a presentation of popular models of computations, in combination with examples of the corresponding languages. The presentation includes models for early design phases, automata-based models, data flow, Petri nets, discrete event models, von Neumann languages, and abstraction levels for hardware modeling. Finally, we will compare different models of computation and present exercises.