—The need to have Transaction Level models early in the design cycle is becoming more and more important to shorten the development times of complex Systems-on-Chip (SoC). These models need to be functional and timing accurate in order to address different design use-cases during the SoC development. However the typical issue with Transaction Level Modeling (TLM) techniques is the accuracy vs. simulation speed trade-off. Models that can run at high simulation speeds are often modeled action levels that make them unsuitable for use-cases where timing accuracy is required. Similarly, most models that are cycle accurate are inherently too slow (due to clock sensitive processes) to be used in use-cases where high simulation speed is key. This paper introduces a new methodology that enables the creation of fast and cycle accurate protocol specific bus-based communication models, based on the new TLM 2.0 standard from the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI).
H. W. M. van Moll, Henk Corporaal, Víctor R