Analysis of “SystemC” design flow for FPGA implementation

High level language termed as SystemC language is recently gaining popularity in VLSI industries especially in Hardware-Software co-design. Using SystemC, Hardware IPs can be modeled at system level which helps to reduce the time to market for SOCs. In most applications SystemC is utilized to verify functionality of the design. However there has been relatively less work done on the synthesis of equivalent hardware from SystemC. In this paper, Finite Impulse Response Filter and Greatest Common divisor are designed as examples in SystemC language and their corresponding synthesis flow from SystemC to FPGA is proposed. The proposed method of synthesis would be time saving than the conventional design and synthesis using HDL in RTL perspective

Cycle Accurate Simulation Model Generation for SoC Prototyping

RR 2004-18, ENS-Lyon, 24 pagesWe present new results concerning the integration of high level designed ips into a complete System on Chip. We first introduce a new compu- tation model that can be used for cycle accurate simulation of register transfer level synthesized hardware. Then we provide simulation of a SoC integrating a data-flow ip synthesized with MMAlpha and the So- cLib cycle accurate simulation environment. This integration also vali- dates an efficient generic interface mechanism for data-flow ips

The Challenges of Hardware Synthesis from C-like Languages

The relentless increase in the complexity of integrated circuits we can fabricate imposes a continuing need for ways to describe complex hardware succinctly. Because of their ubiquity and flexibility, many have proposed to use the C and C++ languages as specification languages for digital hardware. Yet, tools based on this idea have seen little commercial interest. In this paper, I argue that C/C++ is a poor choice for specifying hardware for synthesis and suggest a set of criteria that the next successful hardware description language should have

Rapid high-level behavioral modeling of soc communication interfaces

Abstract. The increasing complexity of hardware and software systems increases the amount of labour and resources required to model them. Especially in system-on-chips (SoC), the complexity of modeling is evident. Electronic system-level (ESL) modeling using the benefits of transaction level modeling (TLM) reduces the required resources and speeds up the modeling time. This thesis examines approximately timed modeling in the context of behavioral modeling with abstract processing elements and abstract arbitration procedures. This thesis describes the basic principles of SoC:s and TLM, and then a problem of modeling a SoC communication interface for a company is investigated, and a TLM solution to the modeling problem is explored.Järjestelmäpiirien tiedonsiirtoyhteyksien nopea korkean tason käytösmallinnus. Tiivistelmä. Laitteistojen ja systeemien kasvava kompleksisuus lisää niiden mallinnukseen vaadittua työmäärää ja resursseja. Erityisesti järjestelmäpiireissä (SoC) mallinnuksen monimutkaistuminen näkyy. Elektronisen järjestelmätason (ESL) mallinnus käyttämällä tapahtumatason mallinnuksen (TLM) hyötyjä vähentää vaadittuja resursseja ja nopeuttaa mallinnukseen kuluvaa aikaa. Tässä opinnäytetyössä tarkastellaan likimääräisesti ajastettua mallinnusta käytösmallinnuksen kontekstissa abstrakteilla prosessointi elementeillä ja abstrakteilla sovittelu proseduureilla. Tässä työssä kuvataan myös järjestelmäpiirin ja TLM:n perusperiaatteet, jonka jälkeen tutkitaan erään yrityksen SoC:in tiedonsiirtoväylän mallinnuksen ongelmaa, ja tutkitaan TLM ratkaisua mallinnusongelmalle

NoC emulation: a tool and design flow for MPSoC

Current Systems-On-Chip (SoC) execute applications that demand extensive parallel processing; thus, the amount of processors, memories and application-specific signal pro- cessing cores is rapidly increasing. In these new Multi- Processor SoCs, (MPSoCs) one of the most critical elements regarding overall efficiency is on-chip interconnections. Network-On-Chip(NoC) provides a structured way of realizing interconnections on silicon, and obviate the limitations of bus-based solutions. NoCs can have regular or ad hoc topologies and can be tuned by a large set of parameters. Simulation and functional validation are essential to assess the correctness and performance of MPSoC architectures. We present a flexible hardware-software emulation framework implemented on an FPGA that is specially designed to suitably explore, evaluate and compare a wide range of NoC solutions with a very limited effort. Our experimental results show a speed-up of four orders of magnitude with respect to cycle-accurate HDL simulation, while retaining cycle accuracy and flexibility of software simulators. Finally, we propose a validation flow for MPSoCs based on our flexible NoC emulation framework, which allows designers to explore and optimize a range of solutions, as well as quickly characterize performance figures and identify possible limitations in their on-chip interconnection architectures

Bridging MoCs in SystemC specifications of heterogeneous systems

In order to get an efficient specification and simulation of a heterogeneous system, the choice of an appropriate model of computation (MoC) for each system part is essential. The choice depends on the design domain (e.g., analogue or digital), and the suitable abstraction level used to specify and analyse the aspects considered to be important in each system part. In practice, MoC choice is implicitly made by selecting a suitable language and a simulation tool for each system part. This approach requires the connection of different languages and simulation tools when the specification and simulation of the system are considered as a whole. SystemC is able to support a more unified specification methodology and simulation environment for heterogeneous system, since it is extensible by libraries that support additional MoCs. A major requisite of these libraries is to provide means to connect system parts which are specified using different MoCs. However, these connection means usually do not provide enough flexibility to select and tune the right conversion semantic in amixed-level specification, simulation, and refinement process. In this article, converter channels, a flexible approach for MoC connection within a SystemC environment consisting of three extensions, namely, SystemC-AMS, HetSC, and OSSS+R, are presented.This work is supported by the FP6-2005-IST-5 European project

Automatic Generation of Schedulings for Improving the Test Coverage of Systems-on-a-Chip

International audienceSystemC is becoming a de-facto standard for the early simulation of Systems-on-a-chip (SoCs). It is a parallel language with a scheduler. Testing a SoC written in SystemC implies that we execute it, for some well chosen data. We are bound to use a particular deterministic implementation of the scheduler, whose specification is non-deterministic. Consequently, we may fail to discover bugs that would have appeared using another valid implementation of the scheduler. Current methods for testings SoCs concentrate on the generation of the inputs, and do not address this problem at all. We assume that the selection of relevant data is already done, and we generate several schedulings allowed by the scheduler specification. We use dynamic partial-order reduction techniques to avoid the generation of two schedulings that have the same effect on the system's behavior. Exploring alternative schedulings during testing is a way of guaranteeing that the SoC description, and in particular the embedded software, is scheduler-independent, hence more robust. The technique extends to the exploration of other non-fully specified aspects of SoC descriptions, like timing

Visualizing Transaction-Level Modeling Simulations of Deep Neural Networks

The growing complexity of data-intensive software demands constant innovation in computer hardware design. Performance is a critical factor in rapidly evolving applications such as artificial intelligence (AI). Transaction-level modeling (TLM) is a valuable technique used to represent hardware and software behavior in a simulated environment. However, extracting actionable insights from TLM simulations is not a trivial task. We present Netmemvisual, an interactive, cross-platform visualization tool for exposing memory bottlenecks in TLM simulations. We demonstrate how Netmemvisual helps system designers rapidly analyze complex TLM simulations to find memory contention. We describe the project’s current features, experimental results with two state-of-the-art deep neural networks (DNNs), and planned future work