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The claimed invention relates generally to the design and verification of integrated circuits (“IC”). In particular, the claimed invention relates to a computer implementable modeling method of designing, simulating, verifying and implementing an IC. With greater particularity the claimed invention relates to a method of modeling using software models of an IC design at different levels of abstraction, with reuse of a common code base engaged with appropriate translation wrappers and automatic generation of interface code.
The constant increase in complexity of integrated circuits (defined herein to include Systems-On-a-Chip, “SOC”) requires correspondingly greater effort for design and functional verification of the designed circuits prior to actually synthesizing the circuit in silicon. Software models of hardware modules are commonly used for various purposes in the IC development process such as algorithm development, architecture exploration, performance estimation and functional verification of hardware modules. To reduce code wastage, reusable functional blocks of high level software code, known as cores, are employed. However, there are challenges in connecting these cores mutually together throughout the development process, and also connecting them with functional elements based on lower level description languages that are used in the design and verification process. Keeping the interfaces current between high and low level elements as they are updated requires constant manual updates to interface code with concurrent risk of human error.
It is an object of the claimed invention to provide an integrated circuit modeling method for each stage of the entire IC development process. The claimed invention provides a computer implementable modeling method permitting IC design, simulation, verification and optionally actual physical implementation in a unified manner. The claimed invention may be provided as a computer program for instructing a computer to perform the steps of the method. The claimed invention may also be provided as computer readable medium encoding instructions, which when executed perform the steps of the method. The computer readable medium encoding instructions be in any form, for example encoded on a physical media, hardware such as a disk, or may simply be accessible from computer memory. The claimed invention also encompasses a computer programmed to perform the steps of the method, a computer implemented method of designing and evaluating an integrated circuit, and an integrated circuit modeling framework tool.
It is a further object of the claimed invention to provide improved planning and ease of use in IC design and verification. The claimed invention provides a top-down planning structure, moving from a system definition and high level software language coding, through to optional hardware level synthesis.
It is a further object of the claimed invention to provide the maximum flexibility and accuracy in the development process, particularly during verification. The improved modeling method according to the claimed invention enables true co-simulation of modules coded in high level software languages and hardware description languages (also referred to herein as a register transfer level “RTL” language), such as SystemC and Verilog respectively. “Coding language” refers to either one or both of high level software language and hardware description language. The instantiation of which modules (high level or hardware level) in the co-simulation environment may be user selectable.
It is a further object of the claimed invention to minimize redundant code and maximize transferability of base code. The claimed invention also has the object of utilizing the same common base code in the architecture exploration, verification and RTL synthesis stages. Preferably this is achieved through establishing a set of functional cores and selectively attaching or providing appropriate code to the appropriate cores at the appropriate stage. The same set of functional cores are preferably coded in a high level language and are deployable at any step of the method by changing or adding the appropriate code as required. The code provides external environment cooperative engagement functionality to the cores, and is attached according to the coding environment in which the core will operate, thus permitting the cores to cooperatively engage with an external environment. Preferably the external environment cooperative engagement functionality is provided by an interchangeable wrapper or inter-module communication wrapper. Preferably the cooperative engagement functionality is automatically generated, for example by an interface generator.
It is a further object of the claimed invention to minimize man hours and errors, and accelerate one or more steps in the IC development process particularly including the verification step which generally occupies up to 70% of the IC design process. The interface generator of the claimed invention generates the interface code that is provided to the external environment cooperative engagement functionality to facilitate communication across otherwise incompatible interfaces, for example by translation between the interfaces at the transaction level and the register transfer level. The translation may be between abstraction levels and/or between coding languages. The input to the interface generator of the hardware specifications may be in any form, but preferably they do not use any specific input specification language, only knowledge of hardware specifications, thus facilitating user access to the modeling framework tool. Preferably the inputs are one or multi dimensional arrays, and even more preferably are two dimensional arrays such as spreadsheets. The interface generator may generate multiple kinds of wrappers as selected, which may be for different simulators. The interface generator may also have error handling functions and verification of the generated interface code functions. The generator may enable the generated code to be ported to other software platforms.
Other aspects of the claimed invention are also disclosed.
These and other objects, aspects and embodiments of this claimed invention will be described hereinafter in more details with reference to the following drawings, in which:
This maximizes the reuse of functional code contained within each functional core 105 throughout the modeling method 100 (
The functional cores and wrappers represent the basic functional blocks of a software model of the integrated circuit, which is defined in system design inputs. As shown in
Based on the system design inputs 135, the system is partitioned into high level modules 140 (
The executable model 145 (
In said refining step, various designs for the integrated circuit are explored, algorithms appraised and design restrictions such as bottlenecks reduced. This results in a refined model having more optimal functional characteristics. In one embodiment, the architecture exploration and optimization step 115 is iterative, so that a first software model is evaluated, leading to a second software model based on the first being established and in turn evaluated, and so on, in a sequence of sub refining steps, each subsequent model ideally being more refined than the predecessor.
In greater detail, issues that are considered during architecture exploration include for example the types, sizes and formats of on-chip buffers, strategies for pipelining of modules as well as choice of bus width.
In another embodiment (not shown), said refining step includes an updating step, wherein the software model is updated to a second software model to reflect changes made to the architecture during creation of the hardware description language modules. For example, a certain module is partitioned into 2 or more hardware description language modules, in which case the same partitioning has to be made in the software model. Another example is adding additional buffers between modules, or changing buffer formats.
In yet another embodiment (not shown), the refining step is the updating step.
In an optional further refining step the executable model 115 is further refined resulting in a final executable model. In one embodiment, refinement of the timing accuracy is achieved from evaluation of feedback from hardware description language modules 155 corresponding to the high level software modules, which test the system's performance at the hardware level (RTL). The RTL implementation allows collection of accurate timing information that is used to improve the accuracy of performance simulation in the method. Each high level module within the software model is annotated with timing estimates that are derived from any of a number of sources. Module timing estimates are based on previous or similar designs, calculated mathematically based on the functionality of the module, predicted based on prior experience of the engineer or output as performance logs from simulation of a corresponding module written and simulated in a hardware description language. In some embodiments certain software modules, e.g. buses or instruction set simulators, are licensed from third party vendors, and hence already include accurate timing annotations. The accurate timing information is input into the software model as timing annotations, such as by using SystemC wait( ) statements. The timing is then assessed against the RTL implementation.
The hardware description language modules 155 are preferably established using automated high level to hardware description level synthesis tools (not shown).
The architectural modeling framework (
The functional accuracy of the hardware description language modules is then verified against the refined executable model in a verification step 120. As shown in
As an optional final step, a complete hardware description level description of the IC can be synthesized from the executable model 145 in a synthesis step 125 (
Because different abstraction levels and different coding languages are used, the environment of the verification step 120 supports both simultaneously, for example in a co-simulation environment. In one embodiment the modeling method 100 establishes a mixed language coding environment, such as that provided by the Cadence NCSC simulator. Either pin-accurate NCSC or hierarchical path NCSC may be implemented, and optionally both simultaneously. Hierarchical path NCSC is preferred for its greater speed. NCSC allows accessing data directly by calling a function which returns a handle to a memory. The function takes as parameter a string that specifies the hierarchical path to the memory. The memory can then be read/written through the handle. Pin-accurate interface means that input/output is modeled close-to-hardware, allowing wires to be connected in the same way as to a pure RTL module. In an embodiment supporting both simultaneously (not shown), a subset of the inputs/outputs are modeled at a closer-to-hardware pin-accurate level, while other inputs/outputs are implemented using hierarchical path access.
In another alternative embodiment, a programming interface may be interposed between modules, such as a direct programming interface, for example System Verilog Direct Programming Interface, Verilog Procedural Interface, or Program Language Interface.
However, in either case, interface code to translate between the high level and hardware level modules is needed. At the RTL level, communication takes place through low-level signaling with specific protocols and data formats. At the TLM level, communication takes place at a higher level of abstraction, and thus does not require adherence to low level protocols and data formats.
This interface code is provided by an interface generator 130, the code being generated prior to the verifying step 120, as shown in
In
The RTL shell module 180 further implements a hardware-accurate port interface, with the converted inputs and outputs being communicated from the RTL shell module 180 via buffers 165 to RTL modules 155.
In
The interface generator 130 takes inputs, parses them and generates interface code 170. An internal symbol mapping table is referenced during parsing. An internal library of templates is referenced during code generation. Finally, the generated interface code 170 is optionally checked that it can be compiled and run using test data in an internal verifier module. Any errors at any stage are reported in an error report 206. A report and optionally a history log (not shown) of the changes can be produced, and optionally supplied to all users of the computer implemented method of the claimed invention. The interface generator 130 can be used to re-generate code whenever the hardware specification inputs 205 change.
As shown in
The interface code is provided to the interchangeable wrappers, either separately or as an integral part. The interface code may include the interchangeable wrappers.
The buffer data structures and adapters are generated based on hardware buffer definitions, which contain detailed information about the exact bit alignment of buffer contents.
Based on the data in the hardware specification inputs 205, code can be generated to convert the low level layout of raw byte data into data structures 200, such as a multidimensional array, which can be used in the high level software model 145.
Then RTL shell modules 180 and interchangeable wrappers, such as SystemC interface modules 175, having output ports, are generated according to the hardware specification inputs 205. These are in communication with the output transactor 185.
In an embodiment using DPI, the automatically generated DPI wrapper 195 defines functions used for passing data between RTL/C++.
Both DPI wrappers 195 and transactors 185 make use of the generated adapters 190 for data conversion.
In
Firstly the hardware specification inputs 205, 205 are provided to the interface generator 130 which generates interface code 170, including RTL shell modules. The RTL shell modules are broken into separate RTL fragments 182 in order to be freely configurable, in other words, so that it is possible to combine the blocks to only export the port interfaces that are desired. The shell modules correspond to modules in the simulation library. The shell modules specify the in/out interfaces, and that the actual implementation is imported from the simulation library 210. In use, the user can instantiate a shell module in his RTL code, and the simulation environment will automatically instantiate the corresponding module from the simulation library.
The interface generator 130 can also generate external environment cooperative engagement functionality such as wrapper code for each functional core. In order to be able to export only the necessary port interfaces, pre-processor directives (not shown) are inserted to conditionally compile only the parts of the source code that correspond to the desired configuration.
Adapters are generated for use by transactors (not shown) to perform conversion between different abstraction levels. There are also generated new and/or updated data structures to be used by the modelling method 100 (
A library builder tool 215 receives as input the interface code 170 from the interface generator. Said library builder tool 215 generates the simulation library 210 containing software modules to be used for verification 120. The library builder tool 215 has a user interface module 220 for setting a user-defined configuration. A graphical user interface (GUI) of said module 220 is shown in detail in
Thus based on the user-defined configuration, RTL shell module fragments 182 are combined and pre-processor directives are passed to the compiler which builds the library. The library 210 is used when performing simulation for verification 120 of hardware description language modules 155 (
The description of preferred embodiments of this claimed invention are not exhaustive and any update or modifications to them are obvious to those skilled in the art, and therefore reference is made to the appending claims for determining the scope of this claimed invention.
The claimed invention has industrial applicability in the design and verification of circuits, especially integrated circuits. The integrated circuits designed may have any functionality. The invention is particularly suitable in designing systems on a chip (SOC). The claimed invention can be used as a standalone, implemented in software providing virtual design, exploration and verification, or can be part of a whole design and silicon synthesis system including hardware elements.