Hardware module interchange format for HW/SW co-simulation

Abstract

The design of a hardware/software mixed system begins with hardware/software partitioning. To get the advantage of ready-made simulation environments, hardware should be modeled using languages which are suitable for hardware modeling and software should be modeled using general-purpose languages. As a result of the modeling, we get two kinds of models, software models and hardware models. HW/SW co-simulation employs such kinds of models, which should communicate with each other in an appropriate manner. A simulator should invoke appropriate models according to the instructions it receives, and the invoked model may be a software model or a hardware model. For an instruction set simulator, all the models should be of executable form by the simulator, but it will be impossible if the modeling languages are different. This thesis proposes a solution for HW/SW co-simulation using a translation method via HMIF(Hardware Module Interchange Format). By using HMIF can get some advantages. First, models which are described by different description languages can be interchanged easily. With bi-directional translators between hardware description languages, models that are described in one language can be translated to the models described in other languages. As a result, two models described using different languages can be simulated in one simulation environment. Another advantage is that we can apply formal verification methods to models in HMIF which is based on the DEVS(Discrete Event System Specification) semantics. This is a great advantage if translators for various hardware description languages are available because we can apply formal verification methods to the models described using hardware description languages. As an application example, we realized a cosimulation framework with which software models described by C++ and hardware models described by Verilog HDL were cosimulated. The exmaple shows that hardware models translated to C++ by our translator com...