Description

Currently employed at STMicroelectronics, Transactional-Level Modeling (TLM) puts forward a novel SoC design methodology beyond RTL with measured improvements of productivity and first time silicon success.

The SystemC consortium has published the official TLM development kit in May 2005 to standardize this modeling technique. The library is flexible enough to model components and systems at many different levels of abstractions: from cycle-accurate to untimed models, and from bit-true behavior to floating-point algorithms. However, careful selection of the abstraction level and associated methodology is crucial to ensure practical gains for design teams.

Transaction-Level Modeling with SystemC presents the formalized abstraction and related methodology defined at STMicroelectronics, and covers all major topics related to the Electronic System-Level (ESL) industry:

- TLM modeling concepts
- Early embedded software development based on SoC virtual prototypes
- Functional verification using reference models
- Architecture analysis with mixed TLM and cycle accurate platforms
- Unifying TLM and RTL with platform automation tools

Complementary to the book, open source code to put this approach into practice is available on several Internet sites as indicated in the first chapter.

 

Table of contents

Foreword
Author: P Magarshack

Chapter 1: TLM: An Overview and Brief History
Authors: F.Ghenassia and A.Clouard

Chapter 2: Transaction Level Modeling – An Abstraction beyond RTL
Authors: L.Maillet-Contoz and F.Ghenassia

Chapter 3: TLM Modeling Techniques based on SystemC
Authors: L.Maillet-Contoz and J.-P.Strassen

Chapter 4: Embedded Software Development through the TLM Approach
Authors: E.Paire

Chapter 5: Functional Verification From the TLM Perspective
Authors: T.Bultiaux, S.Guenot, S.Hustin, A.Blampey, J.Bulone and M.Moy

Chapter 6: Architecture Analysis and System Debugging - a Transactional Debugging
Authors: A. Perrin and G.Poivre

Chapter 7: Design Automation - Integrating TLM in SoC Design Flow
Authors: C.Amerijckx, S.Guenot, A.Kerkeni and S.Hustin