Analog and Mixed-Signal Modelling with SystemC-AMS

SystemC will become more and more important for the design of digital circuits from the specification down to the RT-Level. Complex systems often contain analog components. This paper introduces concepts for the extension of the SystemC methodology for the specification and design of analog and mixed signal systems. The concepts will be illustrated on a telecommunication system including digital hard- and software, analog filter and an analog environment

Towards Analog and Mixed-Signal SOC Design with SystemC-AMS

Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) are heterogeneous by nature as they may integrate digital, analog, RF hardware as well as software components or non electrical parts such as sensors or actuators. The increasing level of complexity for designing SoCs in a reasonable amount of time and resources asks, among other capabilities, for powerful modeling and simulation means. SystemC is emerging as a de facto standard for digital system design, but is still lacking a standard support of continuous-time and mixed discrete-event/continuous-time systems. This paper presents the first elements of extensions to SystemC, called SystemC-AMS, that are proposed to fill the gap

SystemC-AMS Requirements, Design Objectives and Rationale

This paper presents and discusses the foundations on which the analog and mixed-signal extensions of SystemC, named SystemC-AMS, will be developed. First, requirements from targeted application domains are identified. These are then used to derive design objectives and related rationales. Finally, some preliminary seed work is presented and the outline of the analog and mixed-signal extensions development work is given

Modeling embedded systems using SystemC extensions

SystemC AMS extensions introduce new language constructs for the design of embedded analog/mixed-signal systems. This paper presents the novel modeling language for analog and mixed-signal functions that supports design and modeling of telecommunications, automotive and imaging sensor applications at various levels of abstraction. A simple example illustrates how these new features facilitate a design refinement methodology for functional modeling, architecture exploration and virtual prototyping of embedded analog and mixed-signal systems

SystemC-AMS Requirements, Design Objectives and Rationale

This paper presents and discusses the foundations on which the analog and mixed-signal extensions of SystemC, named SystemC-AMS, will be developed. First, requirements from targeted application domains are identified. These are then used to derive design objectives and related rationales. Finally, some preliminary seed work is presented and the outline of the analog and mixed-signal extensions development work is given. 1

Extending SystemC to Support Mixed Discrete-Continuous System Modeling and Simulation

Abstract—Systems on chip are more and more heterogeneous and include software, analog/RF and digital hardware, and non-electronic components such as sensors or actuators. The design and the verification of such systems require appropriate modeling means to deal with the increasing complexity and to achieve efficient simulation. SystemC is providing a modeling and simulation framework that supports digital (discrete) hardware and software systems from abstract specifications to register transfer level models. In the paper, we are proposing a way to extend the capabilities of SystemC to support mixed discrete-continuous systems by implementing a synchronous dataflow (SDF) model of computation (MoC). The SDF MoC is used to embed continuous-time behavior in SDF modules and to support the synchronization with the existing SystemC kernel. The paper presents an overview of the architecture and the syntax of the proposed extensions and gives modeling examples with simulation results. I

SystemC AMS Based Frameworks for Virtual Prototyping of Heterogeneous Systems

This paper presents the past, present, and perspectives of the SystemC AMS standard as well as several commercial and academic frameworks gravitating around it that have been used to develop use cases in various cyber physical domains. After an overview of the standard, two frameworks are described: the COSIDE environment that supports the virtual prototyping of embedded HW/SW systems and its interaction with AMS circuits. Second, the SICYPHOS framework that integrates SystemC AMS into the overall system development ecosystem. By an example we give details how SystemC AMS can be coupled with other simulation tools (OpenModelica) while keeping simulation speed and accuracy high. Another example shows how SystemC AMS can be used as foundation technology to create specialized user-defined models of computation (MoC)

Modeling and Refining Heterogeneous Systems With SystemC-AMS: Application to WSN

Abstract — The paper presents a system-level approach for the modeling and simulation of a paradigmatic Wireless Sensor Network composed of two nodes using SystemC-AMS, an open-source C++ extension to the OSCI SystemC Standard dedicated to the description of heterogeneous systems containing digital, analog, RF hardware IPs as well as embedded software. The paper is composed of three parts. The first part details the modeled WSN (physical sensor, sigma-delta ADC, ATMEGA128 8-bit microcontroller running the embedded application, QPSK-based 2.4 GHz RF transceiver), presents the corresponding implementation in SystemC-AMS, and gives an insight on how multi-frequency simulation is handled in SystemC-AMS. The second part shows how to introduce several RF designer specifications (noise figure, IIP3,...) into models and how to express them in SystemC-AMS. The third part proves that the combination of C++ and RF baseband equivalent dramatically reduces simulation time while keeping excellent accuracy and code readability. The paper concludes on the possibilities offered by this approach in terms of validation and optimization of heteregeneous systems through open-source simulation. I