|
Disclaimer -- Permission to make digital/hard copy of all
or part of any of the following publications and technical
reports for personal or classroom use is granted without fee
provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or
commercial advantage. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on
servers, or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific
permission.
|
TR-01-65
|
Dongwan Shin, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Scheduling in RTL Design Methodology,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-65, July 2001.
This report describes the scheduling algorithm in RTL design methodology.
The proposed scheduling algrorithm is based on resource constrained list
scheduling, which considers the number of function units, storage units,
busses and ports of storage units in each control step, and supports the
pipelined/multicycle operations and storage units, such as pipelined
register files and latched memory.
|
TR-01-59
|
Wolfgang Mueller, Rainer Dömer, Andreas Gerstlauer,
"The Formal Execution Semantics of SpecC,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-59, November 2001.
We present a rigorous but transparent semantics definition of the
SpecC language
that covers the execution of SpecC behaviors and their
interaction with the kernel process. The semantics include
wait, waitfor, par, pipe, and try statements
as they are introduced in SpecC. We present our definition in
form of distributed Abstract State Machine (ASM) rules reflecting
the specification given in the SpecC Language Reference Manual.
We mainly see our formal semantics in three application areas.
First, it can be taken as a high-level, pseudo code-oriented specification
for the implementation of a SpecC simulator which is outlined in a separate
section.
Second, it is a concise, unambiguous description
for documentation and standardization. Finally, it is a first step for
SpecC synthesis in order to identify similar concepts with other languages
like VHDL and SystemC for the definition of common patterns and language
subsets.
|
TR-01-46
|
Slim Ben Saoud, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Co-design of Emulators for Power electric Processes
Using SpecC Methodology,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-46, July 2001.
Emulation of CMS systems is an interesting approach to complete the
validation of new digital control unit and to perform the
diagnosis tasks. However to be efficient, the emulator have to run in real
time in order to reproduce exactly the physical process
functioning.
Today, realization of this emulator is not possible using standard
electronic components. Therefore, we oriented our work to the
development of new embedded systems specific to these applications of
emulation.
This report describes the design of this emulator employing the system-level
design methodology developed at CECS-UC Irvine
(SpecC methodology). Starting from the abstract executable specification
written in SpecC language, different design alternatives
concerning the system architecture (components and communications) are
explored and the emulator is gradually refined and
mapped to a final communication model. This model can then be used with
backend tools for implementation and manufacturing.
For illustration of this approach, we discuss at the end of this report the
case of a DC system emulator and we describe in details
the different stages undergone.
|
TR-01-45
|
Slim Ben Saoud, Daniel D. Gajski,
"SpecC Methodology applied to the Design of
Control systems for Power Electronics and Electric Drives,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-45, July 2001.
Today, control algorithms are being more and more sophisticated due
to the customer and governments demands for lower cost,
greater reliability, greater accuracy and environment requirements (power
consumption, emitted radiation,&). Then, real-time
implementation of these algorithms becomes a difficult task and needs more
and more specific hardware systems with dedicated
processors and usually systems-on-chip (SOCs).
With the ever-increasing complexity and time-to-market pressures in the
design of these specific control systems, a well design
methodology is more than even necessary.
In this report we describe the application of the SpecC system-level design
methodology (developed at the CAD Lab, UC Irvine)
to the design of control systems for power electronics and electric drives.
We first begin with an executable specification model
in SpecC and then discuss the refinement of this model into architecture
model, which accurately reflects the system architecture.
At this stage, we discuss different solutions according to the application
complexity and constraints. Based on the studied
architecture models, communication protocols between the system components
are defined and communication models are
developed.
In this report, we discuss the case of a DC system Control and describe in
details different stages undergone. Generalization to
others systems can be done easily using the same steps and transformations.
|
TR-01-44
|
Slim Ben Saoud, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Specification and Validation of New Control Algorithms for
Electric Drives using SpecC Language,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-44, July 2001.
Today, the shortest time-to-market in the electric drives industries
is being a pressing requirement, consequently development
time of new algorithms and new control systems and debugging them must be
minimized. This requirement can be satisfied only
by using a well-defined System-level design methodology and by reducing the
migration time between the algorithm
development language and the hardware specification language.
In this report, we propose to use the SpecC language for the development
(specification and validation) of new control
algorithms. This includes the specification of the control systems
(algorithms and I/O interfaces) in SpecC and its validation by
simulation using a SpecC specification model of the process under
control.
This new approach will allow designers to implement easily the retained
specification according to the SpecC methodology.
Indeed, the same language (SpecC) is used for the study of new control
systems and their design and implementation.
We first begin with a brief presentation of the electric drives and of the
SpecC language. Then, we discuss the specification
models in SpecC of the whole system including the control unit and the
process under control. We illustrate this approach by an
application example of a DC system. Finally, we present the main advantages
of the SpecC language in the development of new
control systems.
|
TR-01-38
|
Haobo Yu, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Interconnection Binding in RTL Design Methodology,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-38, June 2001.
Bus-based architecture has better performance than mux-based architecture in
large design. In this paper we introduce interconnection binding in a new
RTL design methodology. The proposed methodology uses the bus-based
architecture and supports pipelined /multi-cycle operations and storage
units. By using the tools supporting our methodology, the user can explore
the bus-based architecture design space efficiently.
|
TR-01-37
|
Pei Zhang, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Storage Binding in RTL Synthesis,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-37, August 2001.
In this report, we present the implementation of storage binding which is one
key task in high-level (RTL) synthesis. In previous related works,
storage binding is based on isolated register, or uses 0-1 integer
linear programming
(ILP) for multiple port memories to get optimal result. In this report,
we introduce two new approaches that use clique-partitioning algorithm and
grouping method to map variables into register files and memories that are
normally used in industry.
|
TR-01-36
|
Qiang Xie, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Function Binding in RTL Design Methodology,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-37, June 2001.
This report describes the function binding algorithm in RTL synthesis. It
describes the RTL design methodology and implement our function binding
algorithms in our RTL design refine tool. We proposed two algorithms here,
one algorithm is based on the clique partitioning algorithm and the other
is based on the seed constructive based algorithm. Our algorithms are
resource constraint algorithm and they are focused to minimize the cost
ofinterconnections needed for the datapath and can be performed at different
RTL refine steps.
|
TR-01-35
|
Martin von Weymarn,
"Development of a Specification Model of the EFR Vocoder,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-35, July 2001.
This report describes the development of a High-Level Specification
Model of the Enhanced Full Rate (EFR) Vocoder. The EFR Vocoder is a
complex speech compression algorithm which is widely used in cellular
telephone systems. The Vocoder Specification Model is based on the
bit-exact simulation code provided by the ETSI and was written in the
SpecC language. A detailed analysis of the simulation code was
performed, followed by the development of the Vocoder behaviors in the
specification language. An IP Distribution Model of the Vocoder was
also developed. The report concludes with an analysis of the
suitability of the SpecC language for this project.
|
TR-01-18
|
Shuqing Zhao,
"RTL Modeling in C++,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-18, April, 2001.
In this report we present the implementation of a C++ class library
aimed at providing basic support for modeling RTL semantics in C++.
We first review the inherent features
of the RTL modeling in a formal FSMD approach.
The corresponding C++ implementation for non-pipelined state-based (Moore) machine
is given with the illustration of its usage for two examples.
|
TR-01-12
|
David Berner, Dirk Jansen, Daniel D. Gajski,
"Development of a Visual Refinement and Exploration Tool for SpecC,"
UC Irvine, Technical Report ICS-TR-01-12, March 2001.
This document describes the development of RESpecCT, a refinement
and exploration-tool for the SpecC technology.
RESpecCT is a graphical tool which assists the designer starting
from the functional or specification model of the design in refining
it using the SpecC methodology through different levels to the
implementation- or register transfer-level. It visualizes information
in a way to simplify the process of
taking decisions about details of the design, gives these decisions to
refinement tools and visualizes their results.
|
|