Open SystemC Initiative embarks on a new standardization mission: model control

Fresh from its success in launching the Transaction-Level Modeling 2.0 interface standard, the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) is setting forth on a new undertaking: an attempt to create a standard API not for data exchange between SystemC models, but for configuration, control, and inspection (CCI) of the models. "This interface is about transactions that need to happen between the tools and the models in the simulation environment, not about transactions that will happen in the silicon," explained Forte Design VP of technical marketing Michael Meredith. "In many cases today IP is configurable, and so are the models that represent it. And there are debug and control interactions between the tools and the models that need to happen, but shouldn’t be represented as bus transactions. Hence we are developing a standard interface for these transactions separate from TLM 2.0."

Meredith explained that while many vendors provide configurable models that mirror the configurability of their IP, there is today no standard way to perform this configuration process in the model-integration and simulation process. So each combination of model and tool becomes a proprietary problem requiring its own configuration scripts, and limiting model reuse. Similarly, most models at the SystemC level provide some sort of debug access for save/restore operations, examining state, or perhaps for setting internal debug triggers and traces. These interfaces are also non-standard today. Finally, models may contain information of use to developers, such as lists of error-insertion practices to verify the operation of error-recovery routines, tables of coverage data, and the like.

OSCI has already formed a CCI working group, with about 40 individuals representing 24 organizations. Their hope is to have requirements defined within a few months, and possibly even a draft standard this year. The group is inviting input.

Meredith admits that the work will be challenging, since it involves standardization of functions that are internal to vendors’ models rather than standardization of transactions between models. But he and Intel group director Ken Tallo agreed that the challenge was no greater than that faced by the TLM working group. And the promise of an additional level of reusability for SystemC models should be worth the work.