FDL is the European forum to exchange experiences and learn new trends in the application of languages and their associated design methods and tools for the design of electronic systems. The Forum is organized around Thematic Areas (TA) (described below) and includes working sessions, poster sessions, embedded tutorials, panels and technical
discussions. Fringe meetings such as user group or standardization meetings are also held in conjunction with the Forum.


{ The Thematic Areas}

PDV TA: Property-Driven Design, Verification & Debug
Chair: Dominique Borrione – TIMA Laboratory, France, Dominique.Borrione@imag.fr

The assertion of formal properties provides a uniform expression of expected system behaviour, or constraints that are assumed on the environment, for a variety of design tasks: verification of functional correctness, generation of test stimuli, synthesis of
observation monitors and on-line tests, model checking on the reachable state space, direct synthesis from assertions, etc. Standardized formalisms such as PSL and SystemVerilog, defined with trace operational semantics, were initially intended for
synthesizable RTL; their application is now considered at transaction levels and for mixed system designs. The PDV technical area welcomes research contributions, tool demonstrations, reports on standardization activities and effective applications in all aspects of innovative property expression and processing, with an emphasis on frontier design levels, verification, automatic synthesis and mechanized debug aids.


CSD TA: C/C++-Based System Design
Chair: Frank Oppenheimer – OFFIS e.V., Germany, Frank.Oppenheimer@offis.de

The CSD TA addresses language-based modelling and design techniques for simulation, debugging, transformation and analysis of hardware/software embedded systems. C/C++ based design methodologies are entering productive industrial design flows
especially after the IEEE standardization of SystemC. Hence, the lion share of contributions use SystemC and its extensions to illustrate the scientific approach. However, articles using languages like UML, functional languages, System Verilog are very
welcome, especially if they address interoperability between modelling languages and heterogeneous models of computations. Topics of interest also include embedded software modelling techniques and technology or domain specific approaches, e.g. for
signal processing applications or reconfigurable computing platforms. New mechanisms for abstraction like transaction level modelling (TLM) or SPIRIT and their implications on IP-based system design or system synthesis are in the scope of this workshop
as well as innovativeindustrial case studies.


AMS TA: Analog, Mixed-Signal, and Heterogeneous System Design
Chair: Sorin A. Huss – Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany, huss@iss.tu-darmstadt.de

Modern information processing systems frequently combine analog, RF, power electronic, or even non-electrical components with complex digital hardware and an increasing share of software. The combination and tight interaction of such components is a
challenge: Specification, modelling, simulation, (symbolic) analysis, verification, design, (virtual) prototyping, or even synthesis of analog, mixed-signal, and heterogeneous systems are highly complex issues. Furthermore, physical effects are of an increasing
impact and have to be considered even at system level. Languages, models, representations, and tools such as VHDL-AMS, Verilog- AMS, SystemC-AMS, Modelica, Matlab/Simulink, or Hybrid Automata are emerging to support such issues starting from transistor level up to system level. The AMS Thematic Area aims at presenting latest research activities, design experiences, and standardization issues related to these topics.


UML TA: UML-Based System Specification & Design
Chair: Pierre Boulet – LIFL, Lille, France, Pierre.Boulet@lifl.fr

Model driven methods, mostly based on the Unified Modelling Language, increasingly support semi-formal methods for system level design of complex embedded systems including highly programmable platforms and heterogeneous Systems-on-Chip.
Current design methods do not close the gap from specification to (automatic) synthesis yet. UML related research topics in this field are Executable UML, model driven development (MDA, PIM, PSM), model transformations, UML semantics, metamodels (e.g.,
for SystemC and other System Description Languages or HDLs), UML profiles, formalization of UML towards domain specific languages for simulation and synthesis. Other welcomed topics are standardization work, Real-time UML, model driven techniques for performance analysis, validation and verification, SDL, OCL, XMI and practical design experiences with UML2.