1. A System Specification Model and Method. - 1. 1. Introduction. - 1. 2. Overview of the Development Process. - 1. 3. Objective Nature and Quality of a Specification. - 1. 4. Related Models and Methods. - 1. 5. Essential Concepts for Specification. - 1. 6. Model for Functional Specification. - 1. 7. Object and Data Modeling. - 1. 8. Activity Modeling. - 1. 9. Behavioral Modeling. - 1. 10. Specification of Performance Constraints. - 1. 11. Technological Specifications. - 1. 12. Specification Method. - 1. 13. Expressing Functional Specifications. - 1. 14. Specification Method applied to an Example. - 1. 15. Specific Features of the Specification Model. - 1. 16. Conclusions. - 2. Adept: A Unified Environment for end-to-end System Design. - 2. 1. Introduction. - 2. 2. The ADEPT Environment. - 2. 3. Examples and Results. - 2. 4. Conclusions. - 3. The Design Cube: A Model for VHDL Designflow Representation and Its Application. - 3. 1. Introduction. - 3. 2. Design and Modeling. - 3. 3 The Y-Chart Model and VHDL. - 3. 4 The Design Cube. - 3. 5 Nodes in the Design Cube. - 3. 6. Arcs in the Design Cube. - 3. 7. An extension of the model. - 3. 8. Applying the Design Cube to the Current Synthesis Technology. - 3. 9. Conclusion and Future Work. - 4. A Novel Approach to Guiding Incremental Specification. - 4. 1. Introduction. - 4. 2. Problem Formulation. - 4. 3. Solution. - 4. 4. Example. - 4. 5. Results. - 4. 6. Elaborate Theory for the Identification of Refining Edges. - 4. 7. Conclusion. - 5. An Expert Assistant for Hardware Systems Specification. - 5. 1 Introduction. - 5. 2 The Module Manager and the MODES Environment. - 5. 3 The Module Manager and the CSIF Format. - 5. 4 The Module Manager Architecture. - 5. 5 The Knowledge Representation of the Module Manager. - 5. 6 Conclusion. - 6. Integrating Non-Functional Aspects into Lotos. - 6. 1. Introduction. - 6. 2. Non-Functional Extensions. - 6. 3. An Example. - 6. 4. Properties of the Annotations. - 6. 5. Conclusion. Language: English