The goal of the SPECifIC project is a novel design flow to support the development of embedded and cyber-physical systems, which will meet the challenges of the increased demand on the quality, and the complexity of these systems. The three following characteristics distinguish the SPECifIC design flow:
(i) the introduction of a new formal specification layer, (ii) natural-language techniques to extend tool support from natural-language specifications down to the register transfer level, and (iii) a comprehensive functional change management, which makes the design process more flexible and eases the integration of third-party IP.
The application domains of the SPECifIC design flow range from conventional embedded sys-tems up to cyber-physical systems. The design flow will be validated by case studies, and sub-sequently be carried into academia and industry by DFKI and its partners.