Kamel: IP-XACT compatible intermediate meta-model for IP generation

Abstract

Automatic code generation is used to implement Intellectual Property (IP) blocks for System-on-Chip (SoC), but the challenge is how to describe the IP as a model and what is a feasible meta-model. IEEE 1685 IP-XACT standard and many domain-specific meta-models are not compatible and tool flows are too specific for general use. We present Kamel that is a new intermediate IP meta-model. It is used to generate behavioral code to complete IP-XACT structural models. The key idea is light modeling overhead while automating the majority of the RTL IP development tasks. Kamel uses Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to integrate IP-XACT and Kamel modeling together. Python Mako template-based code generation framework is used to generated different views from the models. The compatibility with IP-XACT is demonstrated with the Kactus2 tool. Our case study is modeling and code generation for Kvazaar HEVC video intra encoder IP block on FPGA. The results confirm that the Kamel and introduced tool flow can provide 5x-10x productivity gain when measured on time spent on model entry and Lines of Code used for model entry.