Final Report Summary - CREDES (Centre of research excellence in dependable embedded systems)
The overall aim of the CREDES project was to create a Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems, based on the research potential of Departments of Computer Engineering and Computer Science of Tallinn University of Technology (TTÜ). The ambition is for the centre of research excellence to become one of the Europe's leading institutions responsible for research and development R&D in the areas of design, verification, test and diagnosis of embedded systems.
The centre of research excellence was created by developing TTÜ's existing scientific expertise and capacities and collaborating closely with specialist research groups at University of Verona, TU Darmstadt, Brandenburg TU Cottbus, University of York, Göpel Electronic GmbH and University of Aveiro.
In order for TTÜ to achieve the overall objective of establishing a Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems, the CREDES project was divided into five sub-objectives, with each one being implemented through its own work package (WP).
1. Develop TTÜ's strategic research partnerships. The objective is to exchange know-how and expertise through twinning actions with five European leading research centres and one company.
2. Increase TTÜ's human potential. The objective is to increase the human potential of TTÜ by hiring junior researchers, post-docs and senior researchers. The new researchers should have specialist knowledge in areas such as embedded software, three-dimensional (3D) architectures, verification and system test, and embedded systems design.
3. Increase TTÜ's technology potential. The main objective is to develop TTÜ's existing R&D facilities, such as increase the server platform performance and extend the boundary-scan test equipment. The objective of CREDES is to improve and to upgrade the lab equipment, to maintain and acquire CAD software, and to acquire and upgrade computing resources for very demanding optimisation tasks in order to facilitate high quality research in defined research areas.
4. Increase TTÜ's scientific visibility. The objective is to support knowledge transfer at national and international levels, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This will be achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences. Also, the visibility will be increased through participation at international conferences and training events, and through other activities.
5. Increase TTÜ's technology transfer for socio-economic needs. The objective is to maximise the transfer and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the European Union (EU). A multidimensional approach will be adopted to achieve this: promotion of project activities and results through a project website, publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentations at international conferences, organisation of workshops to make research proposal submissions to relevant calls from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Work Programme, and publication and syndication of science and technology (S&T) features aimed at Layman audiences.
The most important results obtained during the project:
- 35 technical talks, tutorials or courses given at various location in Europe and beyond;
- 6 presentations to promote, propagate and explain EU FP7 activities and REGPOT programme;
- recruitment of 11 junior researchers and 8 post-doc researchers;
- co-financing of establishment of a new professorship in the area of embedded systems and corresponding research lab;
- significantly improved research infrastructure;
- intensified cooperation in-between twinning partners, facilitated by two CREDES workshop and one summer school (in total 21 technical presentations);
- 14 talks or courses given in Estonia by prominent international researchers;
- participation in organisation of more than 10 international conferences annually (as chairs or members of steering committee) and being members of program committees of more than 20 international conferences (organisation of DDECS 2012 in Tallinn);
- publishing of more than 160 internationally reviewed research papers (conferences and journals);
- editing of the book 'Design and test technology for dependable dystems-on-chip'. IGI Global, 2011, 550 p. Editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, of which 10 chapters were written by the researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and Unites States (US);
- publishing a book 'Design of FPGA-based circuits using hierarchical finite state machines' by V. Skliarov, I. Skliarova (U Aveiro), and A. Sudnitson (TTÜ). TTÜ Press, 2012;
- received funding for several national projects, one FP7 STREP, two FP7 COST and one FP7 INCO project.
Project context and objectives:
The work has been performed in order to achieve the following objectives:
1. Develop TTÜ's strategic research partnerships
The objective was to exchange know-how and expertise through twinning actions with European leading research centres and R&D-intensive companies. Originally we foresaw twinning with three universities:
a) University of Verona which has strong expertise in modelling, verification, testing and optimisation of hardware / software systems;
b) TU Darmstadt which is one of the leading European research centres in microelectronic systems design;
c) BTU Cottbus which has a strong track record in designing dependable computer-based systems, including extensive know-how on self-test and self-repair methodologies.
All twinning activities with these partners have started well and have led to very productive partnerships.
However, over the course of time we decided to include two new partners. In October 2008, Dr Leandro Indrusiak moved from TU Darmstadt to University of York, United Kingdom. As Dr Indrusiak was one of the key persons behind our cooperation with TU Darmstadt then it was decided to extend our twinning activities also towards University of York. In March 2010, we introduced one additional twinning partner: University of Aveiro from Portugal. The main objective was to intensify our joint research in the area of reconfigurable computing.
We have also had very intensive and fruitful twinning with Göpel Electronics GmbH that is a worldwide leading vendor of innovative JTAG / Boundary Scan / IEEE 1149.x test and debug solutions. This cooperation has generated already several interesting new results and software prototypes.
2. Increase TTÜ's human potential
The objective was to increase the human potential of TTÜ, which has difficulty to attract and retain top research students because of high salary level in Estonian information technology (IT) industry. In order to achieve this, TTÜ supported over the course of the project 11 junior researchers and 8 post-docs. During CREDES also a new professorship in the area of dependable embedded systems was established. This activity was complemented with Estonian national programmes that are financed from the EU Structural Funds: Estonian centres of research excellence programme and programme for human resource development.
3. Increase TTÜ's technology potential
The main objective was to develop TTÜ's existing research and development (R&D) facilities, such as increase the server platform performance and to extend the test equipment infrastructure. Since 2006, the two departments have jointly developed infrastructure of a new Laboratory for Synthesis and Analysis of Embedded Systems. This infrastructure is mostly financed from the EU Structural Funds and forms a solid foundation for our current research. However, the available equipment and computing infrastructure requires periodic upgrades for tackling the advanced research problems. Therefore, we have been improving and upgrading the lab equipment, upgrading computing resources and network infrastructure and acquired some demonstrator platforms. Most importantly, we acquired extensions for existing JTAG and functional testers (the original testers were acquired via the infrastructure development project, financed from the EU structural funds). The equipment purchased in the frame of CREDES significantly complemented the experimental infrastructure we were using in the research on synthetic embedded instrumentation cores. Synthetic instruments are running on FPGA or CPU boards interacting with the environment. The experimental equipment consists of two basic parts:
1) JTAG control equipment and
2) functional test and measurement equipment.
The former one is used to configure, control, and fetch test results from the embedded instrumentation via the JTAG port. High-performance JTAG equipment is needed to run industrial grade cutting edge experiments. The functional test and measurement equipment is used to simulate the environment around the system and measure performance and efficiency of embedded synthetic instrumentation.
4. Increase TTÜ's scientific visibility
The objective is to support knowledge transfer at national and international levels, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This is achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences. CREDES was used to support organisation of such events, travelling to such events and to attract people with high international significance. Also, the visibility is increased through active participation in the European Research Area (ERA, by organising and attending various international conferences , training events, and through other activities).
5. Increase TTÜ's technology transfer for socio-economic needs
The objective is to maximise the transfer and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the EU. We have adopted a multidimensional approach:
- promotion of project activities and results through a project website;
- publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentations at international conferences;
- organisation of CREDES workshops, summer school and focus day;
- preparing research proposals to relevant calls from the FP7 ICT Work Programme; and
- publication and syndication of S&T features aimed at Layman audiences.
Project results:
CREDES's implementation was divided into six work packages WPs) covering, respectively know-how exchange (WP1), recruitment (WP2), development of the centre (WP3), workshop and conference organisation (WP4), dissemination and policy development activities (WP5), and finally project management (WP6). In CREDES, all activities were concentrated around embedded systems design and test research. WPs 1, 2 and 3 were directly contributing to the high-quality research and improving the research capacity of the centre by supporting and mobilising the human and material resources, by developing strategic partnerships with well established research groups. WPs 4 and 5 were mainly concentrating on dissemination of scientific information as well as the results of research, but also facilitate communication and improve the response to socio-economic needs.
WP1: Know-how exchange between research centres
The main objective of WP1 was to provide a framework for know-how and experience exchange by twinning actions with our strategic partners. In the following, we will present partner-by-partner the most important activities and results achieved:
University of Verona
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.3: Verification environment for digital systems based on high-level decision diagrams.
- The following new aspects to verification of digital systems were developed in the frames of the CREDES project. First, it is accurate and fast HLDD-based code coverage analysis for simulation quality assessment. This work was published in Estonian Journal of Engineering '10. Here code coverage analysis metrics such as statement coverage, branch coverage and condition coverage are proposed to be analysed based on HLDDs. This approach has allowed more accurate results while keeping computational overhead low. Second, it is efficient assertion checking based on new temporally extended HLDD (THLDD) model for representing verification assertions. This work was published in JETTA'09. Third, it is a SystemC-based mutation analysis tool, which allows automatic injection of faults into the functionality of system descriptions that works at different abstraction levels (TLM and behavioural RTL). Common publications with University of Verona were made at LATW'11 and submitted to JETTA'12 (under review). Fourth, in cooperation with Univeristy of Verona, a methodology for mutation-based design error correction for C descriptions was developed and published at ETS'12. Finally, a method for high-level untestability proof for hierarchical untestable stuck-at fault analysis of non-scan sequential circuits was developed. The method is based on extracting and minimising RTL test path activation constraints that drive a dedicated logic-level deterministic ATPG. It was published at ETS'11 and submitted to JETTA'12 (under review).
TU Darmstadt
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.2: Report on system-level design space exploration framework.
- The concrete cooperation synergies which have been achieve in the frame of the cooperation between TUD and TTÜ can be described as follows:
- Initially at TU Darmstadt developed network-on-chip platform (XHiNoC) is now co-developed at TUD and TTÜ. In the project, we used a mixed language / mixed-level model, where the NoC is modelled in the hardware description language VHDL and the behaviour of the embedded processor cores is modelled in the hardware/software system design language SystemC. In TTU, a method for application mapping under real-time constraints has been developed and the feasibility of the approach has been successfully approved by mixed-level VHDL / SystemC co-simulations. In parallel, at TU Darmstadt a new simulation environment, called GSNoC, has been set up based on SystemC, which allows extremely rapid design space exploration and system evaluation. Besides the described existing system evaluation tools, the result of the CREDES cooperation is a content map, which will be basis for an agreed ongoing cooperation for which several joint project proposals are currently prepared within different funding schemes.
- The results have been published in several joint publications.
TU Brandenburg, Cottbus
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.4: Report on defect modelling, design-for-testability and BIST solutions in industrial SoCs.
- The research carried out in frame of CREDES targeted new methods of defect modelling, fault simulation and fault diagnosis to cope with the continuously increasing complexity of today's digital systems and to improve in the same time the accuracy of diagnosis measured by the diagnostic resolution.
Investigations of the feasibility and efficiency of the new methods were carried out on the industrial circuits which represent a family of biosignal processors, and which were developed in the Centre of Excellence of Integrated Electronic Systems and Biomedical Engineering (CEBE) at TTÜ. Experimental research allowed to establish how the testability of the design is influencing the efficiency and accuracy of testing and fault diagnosis.
Research was carried out in a close cooperation with Brandenburg TU in Cottbus. This fruitful collaboration resulted in joint writing and editing the book 'Design and test technology for dependable systems-on-chip', IGI Global 2011, p. 550 with editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, where 10 chapters were written by researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and United States (US).
Research cooperation with TU Brandenburg resulted, as a side effect, in a collaboration project ZUSYS financed by DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service), which has the goal to carry out collaborative doctoral study mainly in form of jointly organised PhD courses in the related research area of 'Dependable HW/SW systems'.
An intensive international cooperation of the research team has resulted in a broad recognition of the team members by inviting them into the steering and program committees of many international conferences, as well as to present keynote speeches at several high quality events like All-Germany Test Conference, Reed-Muller Workshop, Workshop of Boolean Problems to be held in 2012, video lecturing etc.
University of York
- In cooperation with the University of York, we are in a progress of defining a framework for developing a predictable and dependable architecture for multi-processor systems, using 3D integration technologies. The research will be an extension of the joint research in-between TUD and TTÜ and will be based on Mihkel Tagel's PhD thesis (to be defended in 14 May 2012).
University of Aveiro
- The main results of the twinning action with University of Aveiro are:
1) study of wide spectrum of tree-like structures (TLS such as traditional binary trees, tree-walk tables);
2) suggestion of new common ways to represent and to process TLS in hardware, based on the HFSM model (optimisation through advanced processing and parallelisation, combining TLS with sorting networks (or other accelerating circuits), multilevel data processing, address-based sorting);
3) a new model of HFSM that provides support for modularity, hierarchy, recursion and parallelism, which also permits optimisation methods developed for conventional FSMs to be applied;
4) proof of competence of the proposed technique based on prototyping in FPGA, numerous experiments and comparisons.
It is clearly shown that the proposed techniques are applicable in practice and effective for use in cheap microelectronic devices to design configurable high-performance sorters adaptable to generally unknown number of input data items.
- The research results were published in more than 10 joint conference papers. One PhD student (Dmitri Mihhailov) was under joint supervision and defended the thesis in January 2012.
Göpel Electronics
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.5: Industrial-strength demonstrator on system validation and debug platforms and methodologies based on synthesisable soft-core instruments (with Göpel).
- As a result of the twinning action, we proposed, developed and evaluated two distinctive methodologies of automatic synthesis, fitting, and accessing of soft-core instruments in programmable on-board devices: FPGAs and CPUs.
Our experiments demonstrate feasibility of the conception on various programming, testing and verification examples, where we have achieved substantial speed improvement compared to state-of-the-art industrial JTAG test solutions. This study is based on the demonstrators developed in co-operation with our partner company Goepel Electronic.
The new framework is complementary to current industrial techniques and standards while dramatically extending their applicability in the reality of modern complex on-board data transfer buses and protocols. The proposed method is applicable in abovementioned situations where the conventional boundary scan does not work or is very time-consuming.
Most of the work in this WP was based on two-way staff exchange. We exchanged senior research staff as well as junior researchers. Such visits ranged from short to long (up to several months) and served various objectives. The objectives were: joint research, courses, tutorials, joint use and development of EDA software, joint development of electronic designs and cores, use of research equipment. We foresee that such joint work would serve as a basis for defining new research projects, either bilateral or with EU funding.
In particular:
- Visits of senior staff members to the twinning partners' laboratories with an aim to define common strategies and goals, improve competence in new research topics, establish framework for joint experiments. But also to give courses and tutorials on particular know-how available at TTÜ that could be beneficial or enabling for joint research.
- Exchange of research staff to perform joint research in new research topics, learn from twinning partners about software, technologies, design flows.
- Secondment of TTÜ's junior researchers to the twinning partners' laboratories for training and joint experiments. Support their participation in summer schools and specific training programmes.
- Visits of twinning partners researchers to TTÜ for joint research and experiments, strategic planning, and training.
In total, we have had almost 100 weeks of staff exchange with our twinning partners. In addition we have visited several other partners (such as Royal Institute of Technology, University of Turku, Danish Technical University, Linköping University, TU Ilmenau and others) in order to intensify cooperation and to extend our activities.
In the frame of CREDES, TTÜ researchers have given more than 35 talks, courses and tutorials. The details can be found from the deliverable D1.1: Report on given courses and tutorials.
CREDES researchers have also been very active on proposing new joint research projects (both on national and international level). Funding for the following projects was secured during CREDES:
- Enterprise Estonia preliminary research - Manufacturing test for complex printed circuit boards. Received funding for period 26 May 2009 - 24 September 2009.
- Enterprise Estonia preliminary research - High-level design error diagnosis methods - DIAGNOSIS. Received funding for period 9 February 2009 - 1 April 2009.
- Estonian IT Foundation project - Development of Microprocessors and Digital Systems Design Laboratory at the Department of Computer Engineering at TTÜ. Received funding for period June - November 2009.
- Estonian IT Foundation grant for establishment of the Chair of Embedded Systems. Received funding for 2010 - 2013.
- Archimedes Foundation grant for establishment of the embedded systems professorship. 2010 - 2015. Total budget EUR 0,5 million.
- FP7 STREP FP7-2009-IST-4-248613 - (Diagnosis, error modelling and correction for reliable systems design (DIAMOND). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: IBM (Israel), Ericsson AB (Sweden), TransEDA Systems (Hungary), Testonica Lab (Estonia), University of Bremen (Germany), TU Graz (Austria), Linköping University (Sweden). 2010 - 2012. Total budget EUR 3.8 million.
-Estonian Science Foundation grant 'Hardware functional verification and debug'. Received funding for 2010 - 2013.
- German-Estonian bilateral project 'Experimental research for adaptive failure diagnostics based on structural multi-core emulation test' (ERADOS). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: TU Ilmenau (Germany) and Göpel Electronic GmbH (Germany). Received funding for period 1 April 2009 - 31 March 2011.
- Eureka-Eurostars project 'FPGA-based test acceleration methodology for complex electronic boards' (COMBOARD). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: Goepel Electronic GmbH (Germany) and Testonica Lab OÜ (Estonia). Positive funding decision. Project started 1 January 2011.
- Embedded systems and components (SARS2). Infrastructure development project (2010 - 2012). Financed from the EU Structural Funds. Financing circa EUR 65 000.
- Micro- and nanostructures based embedded systems and components (SARS3). Infrastructure development project (2012 - 2014). Financed from the EU Structural Funds. Financing circa EUR 50 000.
- FP7 INCO project 'Integrating the National Aerospace University "KhAI" into European Research Area' (KhAI-ERA). Partners: KhAI (Ukraine), Fraunhofer (Germany), Brno UT (Czech Republic), Intelligentsia Consultants (Luxemburg), TTÜ (G. Jervan). Funding for the period 2012 - 2014.
- COST European Network of Competence 'Manufacturable and dependable multicore architectures at nanoscale'. Partners from Italy (3), Germany (2), France (2), Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Malta, Ireland, US, Estonia (TTÜ - M. Jenihhin). Funding for the period 2011 - 2015.
- IBM Faculty Award: ZamiaCAD framework for hardware design, debug, and research, Partners: IBM, TTÜ (M. Jenihhin). Funding for the period 2011 - 2012.
- COST European Network of Competence Action IC0901: Rich-model toolkit - An infrastructure for reliable computer systems. Partners from Austria, Israel, Poland, Finland, Romania, Czech Republic, Malta, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Serbia, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia (TTÜ, J. Raik). Funding for the period 2011 - 2013.
CREDES has been directly or indirectly supporting preparation of these proposals. CREDES has been providing solid basis for our research and by many reviewers it has been seen as a very positive factor, thus directly influencing the funding decisions.
All activities of WP1 started at the very beginning of the project (developing scientific plan, scheduling of visits and research) and were improved annually, taking into account the new trends in the specific research topics.
WP2: Recruitment by the Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems
This WP was devised for strengthening the human resources of CREDES. It targeted our own graduates, post-docs and research staff from either Estonia or abroad.
During the course of the project, CREDES supported employment of 11 junior researchers and 8 postdoctoral researchers. Together with other financing sources (Estonian and EU funding schemes) we have established a new professorship in the area of embedded systems and recruited Prof. Thomas Hollstein, previously with TU Darmstadt. Detailed information about the recruitment and quality management is available in deliverable D2.1: Report on recruitment of researchers (junior and senior researchers, including report of recruiting activities). The research results of junior researchers are described in deliverable D2.2: Summary report of research results of junior and postdoctoral researchers.
WP3: Development of the Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems
The objective of WP3 was to reinforce the material S&T potential by upgrading the existing hardware platforms and equipment, by purchasing and installing new scientific equipment, computing resources and software, and also by training personnel for the efficient use of the new equipment.
We completed the server and network infrastructure upgrade, acquired new workstations and additional lab equipment. It includes upgrade and extension of our testers together with various processor boards and development kits. Total investment to the equipment was EUR 181 762,61. Detailed list of purchased equipment is presented in deliverable D3.1: Report on infrastructure upgrade, equipment selection, acquisition and usage.
WP4: Workshop and conference organisation
The objective of WP4 was to organise scientific events for diffusing and exploitation of the research results, for facilitating knowledge transfer at regional, national and international level, for promoting a better response of the research activities to the socio-economic need, for improving the centre research strategy, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This will be achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences.
CREDES has organised seminars to promote the exchange of information with the project partners and with other European centres, to understand better the new trends in European research, to increase the visibility and credibility of the centre. Most importantly:
- We have organised two CREDES workshops (June 2009 and September 2010) and one CREDES Summer School (June 2011) with participants and presentations from TTÜ and our twinning partners. All presentations are made available via CREDES website.
- We have organised CREDES Focus Day 'Hardware design today'. Five lectures were given by reputed experts from leading European universities and companies covering the main challenges of complex systems design and debug, EDA tools insights, dependability and reconfigurable architectures for today's embedded systems.
- We have organised in Estonia several seminars and tutorials, given by twinning partners and other renowned scientists. These seminars are open to participants from the third party - participants from Estonian research groups and SMEs with activities in the same field.
- TTÜ's research staff has participated at international conferences (primarily IEEE and ACM conferences), tutorials connected to the conferences and training events, for knowledge sharing, network building and to expose them to a more international environment.
- TTÜ's researchers have been organising several international scientific events, as general chairs, program chairs or members of steering/management committee. In addition, CREDES researchers are in program committees of more than 20 international conferences.
CREDES workshops are described in the deliverable D4.1: Report and handouts of the CREDES workshops. Information about seminars given in Estonia and organised international conferences is presented in deliverable D4.2: Report on seminars and tutorials given in Estonia and abroad.
WP5: Dissemination and promotional activities
The aim of this WP was to maximise the dissemination and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the EU in order to ensure visibility of TTÜ. We have adopted a multidimensional approach to dissemination and promotion of project activities and our research results:
- promotion through a CREDES website;
- publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentation at international conferences. In 2009 - 2012 the two departments published in total more than 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. The list of publications can be seen here: Department of Computer Engineering(si apre in una nuova finestra) and Department of Computer Science(si apre in una nuova finestra);
- editing of the book 'Design and test technology for dependable systems-on-chip', IGI Global, 2011, p. 550, editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, of which 10 chapters were written by the researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and US;
- publishing a book 'Design of FPGA-based circuits using hierarchical finite state machines' by V. Skliarov, I. Skliarova (University of Aveiro), and A. Sudnitson (TTÜ). TTÜ Press, 2012.
CREDES website is delivered as deliverable D5.1. Report on workshops, meetings, seminars and activities towards various EU initiatives is delivered as deliverable D5.2.
Project's coordinator: Gert Jervan
Institution: Tallinn University of Technology
Tel: +37-262-02261
Fax: +37-262-02253
E-mail: gert.jervan@pld.ttu.ee
Project website address: http://credes.ttu.ee(si apre in una nuova finestra)
The centre of research excellence was created by developing TTÜ's existing scientific expertise and capacities and collaborating closely with specialist research groups at University of Verona, TU Darmstadt, Brandenburg TU Cottbus, University of York, Göpel Electronic GmbH and University of Aveiro.
In order for TTÜ to achieve the overall objective of establishing a Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems, the CREDES project was divided into five sub-objectives, with each one being implemented through its own work package (WP).
1. Develop TTÜ's strategic research partnerships. The objective is to exchange know-how and expertise through twinning actions with five European leading research centres and one company.
2. Increase TTÜ's human potential. The objective is to increase the human potential of TTÜ by hiring junior researchers, post-docs and senior researchers. The new researchers should have specialist knowledge in areas such as embedded software, three-dimensional (3D) architectures, verification and system test, and embedded systems design.
3. Increase TTÜ's technology potential. The main objective is to develop TTÜ's existing R&D facilities, such as increase the server platform performance and extend the boundary-scan test equipment. The objective of CREDES is to improve and to upgrade the lab equipment, to maintain and acquire CAD software, and to acquire and upgrade computing resources for very demanding optimisation tasks in order to facilitate high quality research in defined research areas.
4. Increase TTÜ's scientific visibility. The objective is to support knowledge transfer at national and international levels, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This will be achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences. Also, the visibility will be increased through participation at international conferences and training events, and through other activities.
5. Increase TTÜ's technology transfer for socio-economic needs. The objective is to maximise the transfer and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the European Union (EU). A multidimensional approach will be adopted to achieve this: promotion of project activities and results through a project website, publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentations at international conferences, organisation of workshops to make research proposal submissions to relevant calls from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Work Programme, and publication and syndication of science and technology (S&T) features aimed at Layman audiences.
The most important results obtained during the project:
- 35 technical talks, tutorials or courses given at various location in Europe and beyond;
- 6 presentations to promote, propagate and explain EU FP7 activities and REGPOT programme;
- recruitment of 11 junior researchers and 8 post-doc researchers;
- co-financing of establishment of a new professorship in the area of embedded systems and corresponding research lab;
- significantly improved research infrastructure;
- intensified cooperation in-between twinning partners, facilitated by two CREDES workshop and one summer school (in total 21 technical presentations);
- 14 talks or courses given in Estonia by prominent international researchers;
- participation in organisation of more than 10 international conferences annually (as chairs or members of steering committee) and being members of program committees of more than 20 international conferences (organisation of DDECS 2012 in Tallinn);
- publishing of more than 160 internationally reviewed research papers (conferences and journals);
- editing of the book 'Design and test technology for dependable dystems-on-chip'. IGI Global, 2011, 550 p. Editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, of which 10 chapters were written by the researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and Unites States (US);
- publishing a book 'Design of FPGA-based circuits using hierarchical finite state machines' by V. Skliarov, I. Skliarova (U Aveiro), and A. Sudnitson (TTÜ). TTÜ Press, 2012;
- received funding for several national projects, one FP7 STREP, two FP7 COST and one FP7 INCO project.
Project context and objectives:
The work has been performed in order to achieve the following objectives:
1. Develop TTÜ's strategic research partnerships
The objective was to exchange know-how and expertise through twinning actions with European leading research centres and R&D-intensive companies. Originally we foresaw twinning with three universities:
a) University of Verona which has strong expertise in modelling, verification, testing and optimisation of hardware / software systems;
b) TU Darmstadt which is one of the leading European research centres in microelectronic systems design;
c) BTU Cottbus which has a strong track record in designing dependable computer-based systems, including extensive know-how on self-test and self-repair methodologies.
All twinning activities with these partners have started well and have led to very productive partnerships.
However, over the course of time we decided to include two new partners. In October 2008, Dr Leandro Indrusiak moved from TU Darmstadt to University of York, United Kingdom. As Dr Indrusiak was one of the key persons behind our cooperation with TU Darmstadt then it was decided to extend our twinning activities also towards University of York. In March 2010, we introduced one additional twinning partner: University of Aveiro from Portugal. The main objective was to intensify our joint research in the area of reconfigurable computing.
We have also had very intensive and fruitful twinning with Göpel Electronics GmbH that is a worldwide leading vendor of innovative JTAG / Boundary Scan / IEEE 1149.x test and debug solutions. This cooperation has generated already several interesting new results and software prototypes.
2. Increase TTÜ's human potential
The objective was to increase the human potential of TTÜ, which has difficulty to attract and retain top research students because of high salary level in Estonian information technology (IT) industry. In order to achieve this, TTÜ supported over the course of the project 11 junior researchers and 8 post-docs. During CREDES also a new professorship in the area of dependable embedded systems was established. This activity was complemented with Estonian national programmes that are financed from the EU Structural Funds: Estonian centres of research excellence programme and programme for human resource development.
3. Increase TTÜ's technology potential
The main objective was to develop TTÜ's existing research and development (R&D) facilities, such as increase the server platform performance and to extend the test equipment infrastructure. Since 2006, the two departments have jointly developed infrastructure of a new Laboratory for Synthesis and Analysis of Embedded Systems. This infrastructure is mostly financed from the EU Structural Funds and forms a solid foundation for our current research. However, the available equipment and computing infrastructure requires periodic upgrades for tackling the advanced research problems. Therefore, we have been improving and upgrading the lab equipment, upgrading computing resources and network infrastructure and acquired some demonstrator platforms. Most importantly, we acquired extensions for existing JTAG and functional testers (the original testers were acquired via the infrastructure development project, financed from the EU structural funds). The equipment purchased in the frame of CREDES significantly complemented the experimental infrastructure we were using in the research on synthetic embedded instrumentation cores. Synthetic instruments are running on FPGA or CPU boards interacting with the environment. The experimental equipment consists of two basic parts:
1) JTAG control equipment and
2) functional test and measurement equipment.
The former one is used to configure, control, and fetch test results from the embedded instrumentation via the JTAG port. High-performance JTAG equipment is needed to run industrial grade cutting edge experiments. The functional test and measurement equipment is used to simulate the environment around the system and measure performance and efficiency of embedded synthetic instrumentation.
4. Increase TTÜ's scientific visibility
The objective is to support knowledge transfer at national and international levels, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This is achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences. CREDES was used to support organisation of such events, travelling to such events and to attract people with high international significance. Also, the visibility is increased through active participation in the European Research Area (ERA, by organising and attending various international conferences , training events, and through other activities).
5. Increase TTÜ's technology transfer for socio-economic needs
The objective is to maximise the transfer and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the EU. We have adopted a multidimensional approach:
- promotion of project activities and results through a project website;
- publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentations at international conferences;
- organisation of CREDES workshops, summer school and focus day;
- preparing research proposals to relevant calls from the FP7 ICT Work Programme; and
- publication and syndication of S&T features aimed at Layman audiences.
Project results:
CREDES's implementation was divided into six work packages WPs) covering, respectively know-how exchange (WP1), recruitment (WP2), development of the centre (WP3), workshop and conference organisation (WP4), dissemination and policy development activities (WP5), and finally project management (WP6). In CREDES, all activities were concentrated around embedded systems design and test research. WPs 1, 2 and 3 were directly contributing to the high-quality research and improving the research capacity of the centre by supporting and mobilising the human and material resources, by developing strategic partnerships with well established research groups. WPs 4 and 5 were mainly concentrating on dissemination of scientific information as well as the results of research, but also facilitate communication and improve the response to socio-economic needs.
WP1: Know-how exchange between research centres
The main objective of WP1 was to provide a framework for know-how and experience exchange by twinning actions with our strategic partners. In the following, we will present partner-by-partner the most important activities and results achieved:
University of Verona
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.3: Verification environment for digital systems based on high-level decision diagrams.
- The following new aspects to verification of digital systems were developed in the frames of the CREDES project. First, it is accurate and fast HLDD-based code coverage analysis for simulation quality assessment. This work was published in Estonian Journal of Engineering '10. Here code coverage analysis metrics such as statement coverage, branch coverage and condition coverage are proposed to be analysed based on HLDDs. This approach has allowed more accurate results while keeping computational overhead low. Second, it is efficient assertion checking based on new temporally extended HLDD (THLDD) model for representing verification assertions. This work was published in JETTA'09. Third, it is a SystemC-based mutation analysis tool, which allows automatic injection of faults into the functionality of system descriptions that works at different abstraction levels (TLM and behavioural RTL). Common publications with University of Verona were made at LATW'11 and submitted to JETTA'12 (under review). Fourth, in cooperation with Univeristy of Verona, a methodology for mutation-based design error correction for C descriptions was developed and published at ETS'12. Finally, a method for high-level untestability proof for hierarchical untestable stuck-at fault analysis of non-scan sequential circuits was developed. The method is based on extracting and minimising RTL test path activation constraints that drive a dedicated logic-level deterministic ATPG. It was published at ETS'11 and submitted to JETTA'12 (under review).
TU Darmstadt
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.2: Report on system-level design space exploration framework.
- The concrete cooperation synergies which have been achieve in the frame of the cooperation between TUD and TTÜ can be described as follows:
- Initially at TU Darmstadt developed network-on-chip platform (XHiNoC) is now co-developed at TUD and TTÜ. In the project, we used a mixed language / mixed-level model, where the NoC is modelled in the hardware description language VHDL and the behaviour of the embedded processor cores is modelled in the hardware/software system design language SystemC. In TTU, a method for application mapping under real-time constraints has been developed and the feasibility of the approach has been successfully approved by mixed-level VHDL / SystemC co-simulations. In parallel, at TU Darmstadt a new simulation environment, called GSNoC, has been set up based on SystemC, which allows extremely rapid design space exploration and system evaluation. Besides the described existing system evaluation tools, the result of the CREDES cooperation is a content map, which will be basis for an agreed ongoing cooperation for which several joint project proposals are currently prepared within different funding schemes.
- The results have been published in several joint publications.
TU Brandenburg, Cottbus
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.4: Report on defect modelling, design-for-testability and BIST solutions in industrial SoCs.
- The research carried out in frame of CREDES targeted new methods of defect modelling, fault simulation and fault diagnosis to cope with the continuously increasing complexity of today's digital systems and to improve in the same time the accuracy of diagnosis measured by the diagnostic resolution.
Investigations of the feasibility and efficiency of the new methods were carried out on the industrial circuits which represent a family of biosignal processors, and which were developed in the Centre of Excellence of Integrated Electronic Systems and Biomedical Engineering (CEBE) at TTÜ. Experimental research allowed to establish how the testability of the design is influencing the efficiency and accuracy of testing and fault diagnosis.
Research was carried out in a close cooperation with Brandenburg TU in Cottbus. This fruitful collaboration resulted in joint writing and editing the book 'Design and test technology for dependable systems-on-chip', IGI Global 2011, p. 550 with editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, where 10 chapters were written by researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and United States (US).
Research cooperation with TU Brandenburg resulted, as a side effect, in a collaboration project ZUSYS financed by DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service), which has the goal to carry out collaborative doctoral study mainly in form of jointly organised PhD courses in the related research area of 'Dependable HW/SW systems'.
An intensive international cooperation of the research team has resulted in a broad recognition of the team members by inviting them into the steering and program committees of many international conferences, as well as to present keynote speeches at several high quality events like All-Germany Test Conference, Reed-Muller Workshop, Workshop of Boolean Problems to be held in 2012, video lecturing etc.
University of York
- In cooperation with the University of York, we are in a progress of defining a framework for developing a predictable and dependable architecture for multi-processor systems, using 3D integration technologies. The research will be an extension of the joint research in-between TUD and TTÜ and will be based on Mihkel Tagel's PhD thesis (to be defended in 14 May 2012).
University of Aveiro
- The main results of the twinning action with University of Aveiro are:
1) study of wide spectrum of tree-like structures (TLS such as traditional binary trees, tree-walk tables);
2) suggestion of new common ways to represent and to process TLS in hardware, based on the HFSM model (optimisation through advanced processing and parallelisation, combining TLS with sorting networks (or other accelerating circuits), multilevel data processing, address-based sorting);
3) a new model of HFSM that provides support for modularity, hierarchy, recursion and parallelism, which also permits optimisation methods developed for conventional FSMs to be applied;
4) proof of competence of the proposed technique based on prototyping in FPGA, numerous experiments and comparisons.
It is clearly shown that the proposed techniques are applicable in practice and effective for use in cheap microelectronic devices to design configurable high-performance sorters adaptable to generally unknown number of input data items.
- The research results were published in more than 10 joint conference papers. One PhD student (Dmitri Mihhailov) was under joint supervision and defended the thesis in January 2012.
Göpel Electronics
- The results of the twinning action are described in deliverable D1.5: Industrial-strength demonstrator on system validation and debug platforms and methodologies based on synthesisable soft-core instruments (with Göpel).
- As a result of the twinning action, we proposed, developed and evaluated two distinctive methodologies of automatic synthesis, fitting, and accessing of soft-core instruments in programmable on-board devices: FPGAs and CPUs.
Our experiments demonstrate feasibility of the conception on various programming, testing and verification examples, where we have achieved substantial speed improvement compared to state-of-the-art industrial JTAG test solutions. This study is based on the demonstrators developed in co-operation with our partner company Goepel Electronic.
The new framework is complementary to current industrial techniques and standards while dramatically extending their applicability in the reality of modern complex on-board data transfer buses and protocols. The proposed method is applicable in abovementioned situations where the conventional boundary scan does not work or is very time-consuming.
Most of the work in this WP was based on two-way staff exchange. We exchanged senior research staff as well as junior researchers. Such visits ranged from short to long (up to several months) and served various objectives. The objectives were: joint research, courses, tutorials, joint use and development of EDA software, joint development of electronic designs and cores, use of research equipment. We foresee that such joint work would serve as a basis for defining new research projects, either bilateral or with EU funding.
In particular:
- Visits of senior staff members to the twinning partners' laboratories with an aim to define common strategies and goals, improve competence in new research topics, establish framework for joint experiments. But also to give courses and tutorials on particular know-how available at TTÜ that could be beneficial or enabling for joint research.
- Exchange of research staff to perform joint research in new research topics, learn from twinning partners about software, technologies, design flows.
- Secondment of TTÜ's junior researchers to the twinning partners' laboratories for training and joint experiments. Support their participation in summer schools and specific training programmes.
- Visits of twinning partners researchers to TTÜ for joint research and experiments, strategic planning, and training.
In total, we have had almost 100 weeks of staff exchange with our twinning partners. In addition we have visited several other partners (such as Royal Institute of Technology, University of Turku, Danish Technical University, Linköping University, TU Ilmenau and others) in order to intensify cooperation and to extend our activities.
In the frame of CREDES, TTÜ researchers have given more than 35 talks, courses and tutorials. The details can be found from the deliverable D1.1: Report on given courses and tutorials.
CREDES researchers have also been very active on proposing new joint research projects (both on national and international level). Funding for the following projects was secured during CREDES:
- Enterprise Estonia preliminary research - Manufacturing test for complex printed circuit boards. Received funding for period 26 May 2009 - 24 September 2009.
- Enterprise Estonia preliminary research - High-level design error diagnosis methods - DIAGNOSIS. Received funding for period 9 February 2009 - 1 April 2009.
- Estonian IT Foundation project - Development of Microprocessors and Digital Systems Design Laboratory at the Department of Computer Engineering at TTÜ. Received funding for period June - November 2009.
- Estonian IT Foundation grant for establishment of the Chair of Embedded Systems. Received funding for 2010 - 2013.
- Archimedes Foundation grant for establishment of the embedded systems professorship. 2010 - 2015. Total budget EUR 0,5 million.
- FP7 STREP FP7-2009-IST-4-248613 - (Diagnosis, error modelling and correction for reliable systems design (DIAMOND). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: IBM (Israel), Ericsson AB (Sweden), TransEDA Systems (Hungary), Testonica Lab (Estonia), University of Bremen (Germany), TU Graz (Austria), Linköping University (Sweden). 2010 - 2012. Total budget EUR 3.8 million.
-Estonian Science Foundation grant 'Hardware functional verification and debug'. Received funding for 2010 - 2013.
- German-Estonian bilateral project 'Experimental research for adaptive failure diagnostics based on structural multi-core emulation test' (ERADOS). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: TU Ilmenau (Germany) and Göpel Electronic GmbH (Germany). Received funding for period 1 April 2009 - 31 March 2011.
- Eureka-Eurostars project 'FPGA-based test acceleration methodology for complex electronic boards' (COMBOARD). Coordinated by TTÜ. Partners: Goepel Electronic GmbH (Germany) and Testonica Lab OÜ (Estonia). Positive funding decision. Project started 1 January 2011.
- Embedded systems and components (SARS2). Infrastructure development project (2010 - 2012). Financed from the EU Structural Funds. Financing circa EUR 65 000.
- Micro- and nanostructures based embedded systems and components (SARS3). Infrastructure development project (2012 - 2014). Financed from the EU Structural Funds. Financing circa EUR 50 000.
- FP7 INCO project 'Integrating the National Aerospace University "KhAI" into European Research Area' (KhAI-ERA). Partners: KhAI (Ukraine), Fraunhofer (Germany), Brno UT (Czech Republic), Intelligentsia Consultants (Luxemburg), TTÜ (G. Jervan). Funding for the period 2012 - 2014.
- COST European Network of Competence 'Manufacturable and dependable multicore architectures at nanoscale'. Partners from Italy (3), Germany (2), France (2), Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Malta, Ireland, US, Estonia (TTÜ - M. Jenihhin). Funding for the period 2011 - 2015.
- IBM Faculty Award: ZamiaCAD framework for hardware design, debug, and research, Partners: IBM, TTÜ (M. Jenihhin). Funding for the period 2011 - 2012.
- COST European Network of Competence Action IC0901: Rich-model toolkit - An infrastructure for reliable computer systems. Partners from Austria, Israel, Poland, Finland, Romania, Czech Republic, Malta, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Serbia, Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Estonia (TTÜ, J. Raik). Funding for the period 2011 - 2013.
CREDES has been directly or indirectly supporting preparation of these proposals. CREDES has been providing solid basis for our research and by many reviewers it has been seen as a very positive factor, thus directly influencing the funding decisions.
All activities of WP1 started at the very beginning of the project (developing scientific plan, scheduling of visits and research) and were improved annually, taking into account the new trends in the specific research topics.
WP2: Recruitment by the Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems
This WP was devised for strengthening the human resources of CREDES. It targeted our own graduates, post-docs and research staff from either Estonia or abroad.
During the course of the project, CREDES supported employment of 11 junior researchers and 8 postdoctoral researchers. Together with other financing sources (Estonian and EU funding schemes) we have established a new professorship in the area of embedded systems and recruited Prof. Thomas Hollstein, previously with TU Darmstadt. Detailed information about the recruitment and quality management is available in deliverable D2.1: Report on recruitment of researchers (junior and senior researchers, including report of recruiting activities). The research results of junior researchers are described in deliverable D2.2: Summary report of research results of junior and postdoctoral researchers.
WP3: Development of the Centre of Research Excellence in Dependable Embedded Systems
The objective of WP3 was to reinforce the material S&T potential by upgrading the existing hardware platforms and equipment, by purchasing and installing new scientific equipment, computing resources and software, and also by training personnel for the efficient use of the new equipment.
We completed the server and network infrastructure upgrade, acquired new workstations and additional lab equipment. It includes upgrade and extension of our testers together with various processor boards and development kits. Total investment to the equipment was EUR 181 762,61. Detailed list of purchased equipment is presented in deliverable D3.1: Report on infrastructure upgrade, equipment selection, acquisition and usage.
WP4: Workshop and conference organisation
The objective of WP4 was to organise scientific events for diffusing and exploitation of the research results, for facilitating knowledge transfer at regional, national and international level, for promoting a better response of the research activities to the socio-economic need, for improving the centre research strategy, and facilitate research policy development in the field of dependable embedded systems. This will be achieved by organising various international seminars, workshops and conferences.
CREDES has organised seminars to promote the exchange of information with the project partners and with other European centres, to understand better the new trends in European research, to increase the visibility and credibility of the centre. Most importantly:
- We have organised two CREDES workshops (June 2009 and September 2010) and one CREDES Summer School (June 2011) with participants and presentations from TTÜ and our twinning partners. All presentations are made available via CREDES website.
- We have organised CREDES Focus Day 'Hardware design today'. Five lectures were given by reputed experts from leading European universities and companies covering the main challenges of complex systems design and debug, EDA tools insights, dependability and reconfigurable architectures for today's embedded systems.
- We have organised in Estonia several seminars and tutorials, given by twinning partners and other renowned scientists. These seminars are open to participants from the third party - participants from Estonian research groups and SMEs with activities in the same field.
- TTÜ's research staff has participated at international conferences (primarily IEEE and ACM conferences), tutorials connected to the conferences and training events, for knowledge sharing, network building and to expose them to a more international environment.
- TTÜ's researchers have been organising several international scientific events, as general chairs, program chairs or members of steering/management committee. In addition, CREDES researchers are in program committees of more than 20 international conferences.
CREDES workshops are described in the deliverable D4.1: Report and handouts of the CREDES workshops. Information about seminars given in Estonia and organised international conferences is presented in deliverable D4.2: Report on seminars and tutorials given in Estonia and abroad.
WP5: Dissemination and promotional activities
The aim of this WP was to maximise the dissemination and promotion of project results and activities of the CREDES project in Estonia and across the EU in order to ensure visibility of TTÜ. We have adopted a multidimensional approach to dissemination and promotion of project activities and our research results:
- promotion through a CREDES website;
- publication of research results in peer reviewed journals and presentation at international conferences. In 2009 - 2012 the two departments published in total more than 160 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. The list of publications can be seen here: Department of Computer Engineering(si apre in una nuova finestra) and Department of Computer Science(si apre in una nuova finestra);
- editing of the book 'Design and test technology for dependable systems-on-chip', IGI Global, 2011, p. 550, editors R. Ubar, J. Raik (TTÜ), and H.-T. Vierhaus (TU Brandenburg). The book consists of 22 chapters, of which 10 chapters were written by the researchers of TTÜ and TU Brandenburg, and 12 remaining chapters where contributed by other leading researchers from Europe and US;
- publishing a book 'Design of FPGA-based circuits using hierarchical finite state machines' by V. Skliarov, I. Skliarova (University of Aveiro), and A. Sudnitson (TTÜ). TTÜ Press, 2012.
CREDES website is delivered as deliverable D5.1. Report on workshops, meetings, seminars and activities towards various EU initiatives is delivered as deliverable D5.2.
Project's coordinator: Gert Jervan
Institution: Tallinn University of Technology
Tel: +37-262-02261
Fax: +37-262-02253
E-mail: gert.jervan@pld.ttu.ee
Project website address: http://credes.ttu.ee(si apre in una nuova finestra)