Available from Carbon’s IP Exchange at no charge, the software contains definitions and extensions for AMBA 3 AXI3™, AHB™, AHB-Lite™ and APB™ protocols at the loosely timed, approximately timed and cycle-timed levels of abstraction. Adapters are provided to bridge between abstraction levels and to connect directly to the AMBA Programmer’s View (PV) interface used by ARM’s Fast Models.
“Many designers encounter compatibility problems when attempting to reuse TLM-2.0 models for the AMBA protocol from other companies or even within their own company,” comments Bill Neifert, chief technology officer (CTO) at Carbon Design Systems. “The market has needed an accessible, non-proprietary solution that provides a set of definitions for TLM-2.0 for AMBA to run in any SystemC environment. With this solution, Carbon’s continues to deliver tools to ease the process of virtual platform model reuse for all designers using AMBA protocols, regardless of their EDA vendor.”
“Our integrations of complex System-On-Chip ICs that include the AMBA protocol and other protocols, exploit TLM based SystemC virtual platforms,” says Alain Clouard, manager of System Platforms Group, Home Entertainment and Displays, STMicroelectronics. “We welcome protocol owners, such as ARM, teaming with partners to define SystemC representation of their protocols. Model suppliers adopting a unique and TLM-based cycle-accurate (CA) definition of the AMBA protocol, is making it easier for IP users to integrate, where needed, various CA models for AMBA, such as ‘Carbonized’ IP models, in higher-level simulation platforms such as ST’s TLM_TAC virtual SoC. Enabling the communication of such CA model with higher-level TLM AT or TLM LT models in this virtual SoC, is facilitated by the common base TLM standard.”