Lambda the Ultimate

The object-oriented modeling language Modelica is designed to allow convenient, component-oriented modeling of complex physical systems, e.g., systems containing mechanical, electrical, electronic, hydraulic, thermal, control, electric power or process-oriented subcomponents. The free Modelica language, free Modelica libraries and Modelica simulation tools are available, ready-to-use and have been utilized in demanding industrial applications, including hardware-in-the-loop simulations. The development and promotion of Modelica is organized by the non-profit Modelica Association.

I stumbled upon this site a couple of days ago. It look pretty interesting, the overview offers a good introduction to its features.

Link: The article discusses the future of HDLs given the encroachment of software programming languages.

It's not time for the revolution yet. Traditional hardware-description languages have specific features that make them superior to software programming languages; although SystemC has its place in the hardware-design process, it still can't compete with Verilog and VHDL...
Verilog may have C-like syntax and VHDL an Ada-like syntax, but there are significantly different concepts in HDLs and software programming languages. Most importantly, an HDL adds the notions of concurrency and time.

From a PL perspective, it always seems to get back to whether a dedicated language is better suited than a more flexible general purpose one. And whether the specifications are best verified within the language or by a suite of tools and tests.