22th April, 09
Noida, India
Growing SystemC modeling technology company CircuitSutra Technologies Pvt Ltd today announced it has developed a demo SystemC model set which is completely based on STARC transaction level modelling guide second edition released in January 2009. The demo models helps system design engineers who want to do practical study of transaction level modelling using SystemC. It also helps people who want to master modeling guideline of STARC.

Transaction level (TL) modeling technique is introduced to solve the design criteria to develop increasingly complex large scale designs. TL design methodology can raise the abstraction level of the design, which enable engineers to see the design behaviour more abstracted level, also reduce the coding volume. This modeling technique enabled architectural exploration and/or software/hardware co-design, co-verification more early stage of the design.

STARC TL modeling guide second edition defines the standard in three areas – abstraction level, model structure, and communication API. It is based on OSCI TLM2.0 features such as coding styles, sockets, generic payload, and base protocol. The demo SystemC model set developed by CircuitSutra is compliant with this guide.

The demo model consists of general purpose timer, programmable interrupt controller, and initiator. By following the coding style of this demo model, you can learn the key points of STARC TL Modelling Guide, such as model structure which separate computation and communication function, class separation for TLM APIs, and usage of several abstraction levels. You can compile and run it on OSCI SystemC simulation environment. User guide is included along with demo models. Note that the code is well evaluated by STARC experts prior to the release.

“We are very pleased that CircuitSutra developed, first in the world, a demo SystemC model set compliant with our TL Modeling Guide second edition, and released it with free of charge. We appreciate CircuitSutra’s support to STARC TL Modeling Guide.” Mr. Sho Sano, Senior Manager, Design Standard Group, Planning Department of STARC said. “By studying this newly developed demo model set, engineers can easily understand the technique of transaction level modeling. The demo set will undoubtedly accelerate the widespread use of TLM methodology in the industry.”
“We are very proud of this announcement.” said Umesh Sisodia, CEO of CircuitSutra. “In transaction level modeling, the different and sometimes conflicting definitions of various TLM concepts are being used in the industry. This TLM guide compares such variations, and redefines them clearly. Furthermore, model structure which separates computation core and communication wrapper enables model reusability. STARC TL Modeling Guide is a standard in the industry along with OSCI TLM2.0 documentation. ““Please download our demo model set from our website, and give it a try. We are sure running this code with STARC TLM guide gives you clear visibility about Transaction Level modelling.”

The code is available now, can be downloaded from CircuitSutra website. It’s free of charge.
http://www.circuitsutra.com/

About STARC
Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Centre (STARC) was established in December 1995 with investment from Japan’s leading semiconductor suppliers to reinforce semiconductor design capability. Since its inception, STARC has been conducting joint research with universities and the semiconductor industry to strengthen the bases of research in the field of semiconductor technology at domestic universities.
The outcomes of these activities have now been utilized industry-wide in Japan through the transfer of technologies to investing companies to help their businesses, the documenting of technical standards and the licensing of technologies to partner companies for commercialization. For more information about STARC and its research, visit http://www.starc.jp/index-e.html.

About CircuitSutra
CircuitSutra was started in November 2005 based in India, and it has established itself as the centre of excellence in SystemC based SoC modelling. CircuitSutra has an in-depth understanding of the various standards in this domain like OSCI’s TLM2.0, the STARC TL Guidelines, and the GreenSocs open source infrastructure for tool independent model development. CircuitSutra is providing SystemC modeling services to a worldwide customer base, which range from small fabless organisations to the top ten semiconductor companies. Since more and more contents of a SoC are becoming software, more and more chip design steps are becoming like C / C++ programming, CircuitSutra has an important role to play in the future of semiconductor industry. CircuitSutra is the first company in India to get seed funding from JSSATE, Science & Technology Entrepreneurs Park. CircuitSutra is the recipient of ISBA Entrepreneurship award 2008. For more information, see www.circuitsutra.com