Traditionally, on-board computers of satellites and embedded systems in general are implemented partly in software and partly in hardware, and usually developed by separate teams. In complex projects, integration problems are often experienced since the software and hardware groups work separately. To a certain extent the availability of several functional blocks embedded in the same software-based component (e.g. microcontroller, DSP), and accessed directly by the programming language compiler, has allowed the software designer to avoid learning hardware details. The use of...