System-on-Chip Design and Modelling
Lecturer: Dr D.J. Greaves
No. of lectures: 12
Prerequisite courses: Specification and Verification II, Computer Design, ECAD, C and C++
Aims
A current-day system on a chip (SoC) consists of several different
microprocessor subsystems together with memories and I/O
interfaces. This course covers SoC design and modelling techniques
with emphasis on architectural exploration, assertion-driven design
and the concurrent development of hardware and embedded software.
This is the ``front end'' of the design automation tool chain. (Back
end material, such as design of individual gates, layout, routing and
fabrication of silicon chips is not covered.)
A percentage of each lecture is used to develop a running example.
Over the course of the lectures, the example evolves into a System On
Chip demonstrator with CPU and bus models, device models and device drivers. All code
and tools are available online so the examples can be reproduced and
exercises undertaken. The main languages used are Verilog and C++
using the SystemC library.
Lectures
- 1. Verilog RTL design with examples. Event-driven simulation with and
without delta cycles, basics of synthesis to gates algorithm and design examples.
Structural hazards, pipelining, memories and multipliers.
- 2. RTL Continued.
- 3. SystemC overview. The major components of the SystemC C++ class library
for hardware modelling are covered with code fragments and demonstrations.
- 4. SystemC Continued.
- 5. Basic SoC Components and Bus Structures. CPU, RAM, Timers, DMA, GPIO, Network, Bus structure. Interrupts, DMA
and device drivers. Examples. Basic bus bridging.
- 6. ESL + Transactional Modelling. Electronic systems level (ESL) design.
Architectural exploration. Firmware modelling methods. Blocking and non-blocking transaction
styles. Approximate and loose timing styles. Queue and contention modelling. Examples.
- 7. ESL/TLM Continued.
- 8. ABD: Assertions and Monitors. Types of assertion
(imperative, safety, liveness, data conservation). Assertion-based
design (ABD). PSL/SVA assertions. Temporal logic compilation of
fragments to monitoring FSM. Brief tour of SystemVerilog if time
permits.
- 9. ABD Continued.
- 10. Further Bus Structures.
Busses used in today's SoCs (OPB/BVCI, AHB and AXI).
Glue logic synthesis. Transactor synthesis. Pipeline Tolerance. Network on chip.
- 11, Engineering Aspects: FPGA and ASIC design flow. Cell
libraries. Market breakdown: CPU/Commodity/ASIC/FPGA. Further tools used for design of
FPGA and ASIC (timing and power modelling, place and route, memory
generators, power gating, clock tree, self-test and scan insertion).
Dynamic frequency and voltage scaling.
- 12. Future approaches Only presented if time
permits. Non-examinable. Recent developments: BlueSpec, IP-XACT, Kiwi,
Custom processor synthesis.
In addition to these topics, the running example will demonstrate
a few practical aspects of device bus interface design, on chip
communication and device control software. Students are encouraged
to try out and expand the examples in their own time.
Objectives
At the end of the course students should
-
be familiar with how a complex gadget containing multiple processors,
such as an iPod or satnav, is designed and developed;
- understand the hardware and software structures used
to implement and model inter-component communication in such devices;
- be familiar with SystemC and PSL assertions.
Recommended reading
* OSCI. SystemC tutorials and whitepapers . Download from OSCI www.systemc.org or copy from course web site (to be added below).
Ghenassia, F. (2006). Transaction-level modeling with SystemC: TLM concepts and applications for embedded systems . Springer.
Eisner, C. & Fisman, D. (2006). A practical introduction to PSL . Springer (Series on Integrated Circuits and Systems).
Foster, H.D. & Krolnik, A.C. (2008). Creating assertion-based IP . Springer (Series on Integrated Circuits and Systems).
Grotker, T., Liao, S., Martin, G. & Swan, S. (2002). System design with SystemC . Springer.\\
Wolf, W. (2002). Modern VLSI design (System-on-chip design) . Pearson Education.
LINK.
Additional Materials
To be added.
END