Fingerprint authentication, in an embedded and portable context, requires complex signal, network, and security-protocol processing in a resource-constrained implementation. We present a platform-based design approach for this application, based on a hierarchy of virtual machines (VM). The fingerprint authentication is programmed in Java, C, and VHSIC hardware description language, and mapped onto a hierarchy of three machines, consisting of an embedded Java VM, an Sparc-V8 core, and an field programmable gate array. We show bow our approach is able to cope with multiple concurrent design processes and multiple application domains, including biometrics signal processing, as well as security-protocol implementation. The platform-based design approach also deals with reuse requirements for embedded software and hardware. The formulation of a platform as a VM enables design exploration and incremental design validation throughout the design traject, and results in a specialized, but still programmable, platform. The Java bytecode of our fingerprint authentication takes less than 10 kB.
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