{{other uses of, CIP CIP-Tool (Communicating Interacting Processes) is a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

tool for the modelling and implementation of event-driven applications. It is especially relevant for the development of software components of

embedded systems An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' ...

History

The underlying mathematical formalisms of CIP were first proposed by the physicist, Prof. Dr. Hugo Fierz. The tool was subsequently developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Zurich) in a series of research projects during the 1990s. Development and distribution has since been transferred to a commercially operating spin-off company, CIP-Tool, based in

Solothurn Solothurn ( , ; french: Soleure ; it, Soletta ; rm, ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissens ...

, Switzerland. CIP Tool has been over taken by Actifsource GmbH in summer 2011. Actifsource has integrated the CIP Tool into the Actifsource workbench.

Methodology

The CIP-model is basically a

finite state machine A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...

, or more precisely, an extended finite state machine (processes can store and modify variables and can use these to enable or disable transitions). In CIP, a desired system behaviour is broken down into distinct ''processes'', each of which is a set of ''states'' interconnected by ''transitions''. One state in every process is tagged as ''active'' state. This active status can be transferred to another state through the execution of a transition. Such transitions are triggered by ''events'' (from external sources, e.g. sensors) or ''in-pulses'' (from other processes). Transitions can in turn send one or several ''out-pulses'' (to other processes) or ''actions'' (to external receivers, e.g. effectors). The CIP-model is sometimes confused with

petri nets A Petri net, also known as a place/transition (PT) net, is one of several mathematical modeling languages for the description of distributed systems. It is a class of discrete event dynamic system. A Petri net is a directed bipartite graph that ...

. This may be because to beginners, the notation looks similar. The similarities should not be over-stressed, however. For example, CIP allows only (and exactly) one active state per process and processes are neither started nor terminated during run-time.

Code generation

CIP-Tool permits models to be automatically converted to executable code. This greatly facilitates testing, documentation and final implementation. Currently the languages C/C++ and

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are supported as output formats.

External links

company website
Science software Automata (computation) Models of computation