Yes you are both correct, OO Analysis and Design is only really suitable for systems with multiple Components and modules. My point is that people generally go ahead and design hardware without really formally following object oriented concepts... What if they realized what OOAD is, and followed some of its guidelines while designing their system?

The way to design good software is to start out with completely OO design and then optimize wherever the loss of OO concepts is compensated by sufficient improvement in performance. In hardware terms, that's where people would use the 'tricks' they have learnt from experience and breaking normal protocols. Maybe if you make the design in terms of OO and try to BREAK the rules, you may discover new tricks ;-)

What advantages can you think are possible? Wouldn't it be easier to start out with UML and Sequence diagrams and other techniques, before moving on to circuit design and coding?

My point basically is that I think applying formal OOAD concepts to hardware design will make it easier than going about it logically from scratch. I think OOAD lets one minimize design time by working with certain assumptions that are fundamental to all systems, reinforcing aspects that are vital and eliminating all possibilities that violate these assumptions. The thinking process becomes very clear, and hence design efficiency increases.

I dont see why we cant use current software design automation tools like Rational and Visio for embedded hardware/software design !! :-))

Thus if one can come up with an OOAD specifically catering to embedded systems (eg including Noise as an universal attribute:-)) ), we will have a tool to make design much better. It will facilitae software/hardware co-design and other such issues facing engineers. If one can program that model into software, one can have a powerful EDA tool too... :-))

kundi