A mixed-level virtual prototyping environment for refinement-based design environment

Abstract

The Communication Architecture Template Tree (CATtree) is an abstraction of the specific range of communication functions and architectures, which can facilitate system function capture and communication architecture refinement. In this paper, we explain a TLM-RTL-SW mixedlevel simulation environment that is useful for the functional verification of partially refined system models. We employed SystemC, GNU Gdb and a HDL simulator for the simulation of CATtree-based TLM, SW and HW, respectively. We also employed a new operating system, DEOS so that each SystemC-based TLMs can be cross-compiled to be executed as software models on the target processors. We evaluated the flexibility and simulation performance of the virtual simulation environment with an H.264 decoder design example.