In: VII SBAC-PAD: Brazilian Symposium on Computer Architecture - High Performance Processing, Canela (RS), Brazil. July 1995.
Abstract: Petri Nets (PNs) provide a powerful tool to model and simulate the behaviour of complex systems, allowing the use of formal validation procedures. In this article, the advantages of using PNs to model parallel controllers are compared with other approaches . Modifications to the standard PN behaviour are proposed to allow fast specification of synchronous parallel controllers. A system specification based on a PN can be supported by the set of tools presented here, which formally validates the behaviour of the system (the control path), executes and animates the PN model and generates VHDL code for circuit simulation and synthesis. An example of a parallel controller is presented to illustrate the suitability of the current work.