Semi-automated design of high-performance communication subsystems

Implementations of communication protocols are typically based on highly specialized components, e.g., VLSI chips for ATM Adaptation Layer processing. The development of these specialized implementations is very time-consuming and, thus, justified only for high volumes. For a large number of multimedia applications, it would be desirable to be able to provide quickly high-performance implementations of protocols with new functionality. Using a unifying design method and suitable design tools, this goal can be achieved today. Our solution is based on a standard language for protocol specification, a generic target architecture for protocol implementation, and customized/commercial tools for mapping of the protocol specification onto the target platform. Using this approach for a powerful ATM Adaptation Layer protocol featuring forward error correction and retransmission we demonstrate the applicability for complex protocols with stringent timing requirements. Additionally, our approach results in fairly small hardware solutions compared to common processors.