A lightweight infrastructure for the dynamic creation and configuration of virtual platforms

Abstract

Virtual prototypes leverage SystemC/TLM for simulating programmable platforms comprising 100s of modules. Their efficient creation and configuration is vital for acceptable turnaround times, e.g., during performance exploration or software development. Therefore, our lightweight infrastructure provides a factory creating designs from abstract descriptions of module instances, properties, and connections. Modules mark properties as creation or runtime parameters. The resulting generic design descriptions are usable by non-experts and enable front-ends. The infrastructure is a small C++ library that can be combined with existing SystemC/TLM models and simulation kernels. An industrial case study of a complex multiprocessor SoC shows a distinct productivity gain.