SystemC Components

(SystemC using transactional-level modelling (TLM/ESL) is in a later section).

SystemC is a free library for C++ for hardware SoC modelling. »Download from www.systemc.org

It includes (at least):

• A module description system where a module is a C++ class,

• An eventing and threading kernel,

• Compute/commit signals as well as other forms of channel,

• A library of fixed-precision integers,

• Plotting and logging facilities for generating output,

• A separate transactional modelling library.

Originally aimed as an RTL replacement, for low-level hardware modelling.

Now being used for high-level (esp. transactional) modelling for architectural exploration.

Also now being used as an implementation language with its own synthesis tools.

Problem: hardware engineers are not C++ experts but they can be faced with confusing C++ error messages.

Benefit: General-purpose behavioural C code, including application code and device drivers, can all be modelled in a common language.