How to use UML in your SoC hardware/software design: Part 4

By Stephen J. Mellor, John R. Wolfe, and Campbell McCausland, Mentor Graphics
Aug 16 2006 (9:45 AM), Embedded.com

The basic tools we have proposed that the SoC hardware developer use to simplify his job—UML models, metamodels, and transformations to text—all fit into a larger context. The Object Management Group, the organization that standardized the UML, has an initiative called Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) which intends to standardize many of the elements required for SoC.

You may have heard of MDA in an IT context, but the principles behind it apply to system development in general, and they're not specific to a certain kind of system or even to software. [1].

MDA is three things:

An OMG initiative to develop standards based on the idea that modeling is a better foundation for developing and maintaining systems
A brand for standards and products that adhere to those standards
A set of technologies and techniques associated with those standards

(Dr. Richard Mark Soley, the Chairman of the OMG, defined MDA thusly. We also used his definition in [1], for which Dr. Soley was a reviewer.)

At present, MDA is still in development, and some of the technologies need further definition while others need to be standardized.

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