Abstract: We present a hardware and software tool box that allows to map an initial specification done in term of tasks communicating through FIFOs onto a HW/SW architecture. Communication templates are used to characterize the way data are exchanged between tasks realized either in software or in hardware. From these templates, we define the specifications -in terms of resources necessary to handle the communications- of a hardware module and a set of software drivers. These Interface Modules and their software counterparts allow simple Virtual Component reuse since they not only implement protocol compatibility through the use of the VCI/OCB standard but also system level communications through semantics widely accepted in the design community. The interface modules have been used in the COSY project for the implementation of a video decoder by Philips starting from a system-level description and performing communication refinement using Cadence VCC and Philips' own communication schemes.