1. A method for constructing a system dependence graph from a unified hardware-software specification comprising the steps of: (a) creating a plurality of procedure dependence graphs, one said procedure dependence graph for each procedure in said unified hardware-software specification; (b) connecting said procedure dependence graphs with a plurality of interprocedural edges, said interprocedural edges representing interprocedural dependences; (c) connecting said procedure dependence graphs with a plurality of interprocess edges, said interprocess edges representing interprocess dependences; whereby a multitude of dependence relationships in a unified hardware-software specification are explicitly represented.