System level simulation — A core method for efficient design of MEMS and mechatronic systems

IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst.

Fraccaroli

et al. 2018

Analog components are fundamental blocks of smart systems, as they allow a tight interaction with the environment, in terms of both sensing/actuation and communication. This impacts on the design of the overall system, and mainly on the validation phase, that thus requires the joint simulation of digital and analog aspects. In this scenario, this paper proposes the automatic conversion of analog models to C++-based languages, to remove the overhead of co-simulation with traditional virtual platform tools. The proposed methodology allows to convert a given analog description to either (1) a fully equivalent description, or (2) an abstract representation for faster simulation which models only the aspects of interest. Effectiveness and correctness have been proved on a number of case studies, that highlight the effectiveness and potentiality of the proposed methodology.

Section: A Choice Of the Suitable Systemc Ams Abstraction Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analog Models Manipulation for Effective Integration in Smart System Virtual Platforms

IEEE Trans. Comput.-Aided Des. Integr. Circuits Syst.

Fraccaroli

et al. 2018

“…These characteristics do not fit in any of the SystemC-AMS abstraction levels. Nonetheless, they are widely supported by other AMS HDLs for the design of components such as MEMS and analogue circuitry [6], [7]. It is thus necessary to extend SystemC-AMS, to improve its coverage and effectiveness.…”

Section: A the Abm Abstraction Levelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…SystemC-AMS is less expressive than Verilog-AMS, i.e., it supports a more restricted range of constructs and ELN models can be composed only of instances of the predefined primitives [7], [10]. E.g., in SystemC-AMS a voltage value can be controlled only by one voltage contribution, while Verilog-AMS allows any number of contributions.…”

Section: Division Into Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The case study is a 2-dimensional MEMS accelerometer implemented in Verilog-AMS by means of the MEMS design platform MEMS+, that supports automatic Verilog-AMS code generation [6], starting from 3-dimensional physical models as the one depicted in Figure 9. The choice of a MEMS design was guided by the consideration that MEMS behavioural modelling is based on differential and algebraic equations [7], thus following the Verilog-AMS structure assumed in this paper. Table III reports the main characteristics of the MEMS design, both in terms of simultaneous statements and of types of contributions.…”

Section: The Mems Accelerometermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The resulting gap between ELN and LSF thus misses descriptions that are both behavioural and conservative, that This work has been partially supported by the European project SMAC FP7-ICT-2011-7-288827. are commonly used for the modelling of MEMS and other analogue components [6], [7]. The limited flexibility of SystemC-AMS forces designers to adopt other AMS HDLs (e.g., Verilog-AMS) for modelling this kind of component, thus reducing the applicability of SystemC-AMS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Conservative behavioural modelling in systemc-AMS

2015 Forum on Specification and Design Languages (FDL)

Zwoliński

2015

SystemC has recently been extended with the Analogue and Mixed Signal (AMS) library, with the ultimate goal of providing simulation support to analogue electronics and continuous time behaviours. SystemC-AMS allows modelling of systems that are either conservative and extremely low level or continuous time and behavioural, which is limited compared to other AMS HDLs. This work faces up this challenge, by extending SystemC-AMS support to a new level of abstraction, called Analogue Behavioural Modelling (ABM), covering models that are both behavioural and conservative. This leads to a methodology that uses SystemC-AMS constructs in a novel way. Full automation of the methodology allows proof of its effectiveness both in terms of accuracy and simulation performance, and application of the overall approach to a complex industrial Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) case study. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is further highlighted in the context of virtual platforms for smart systems, as adopting a C++-based language for MEMS simulation reduces the simulation time by about 2x, thus enhancing the design and integration flow.

Design Domains and Abstraction Levels for Effective Smart System Simulation

Smart Systems Integration and Simulation

Guarnieri

et al. 2016

Smart systems cover a wide variety of domains, ranging from analogue to digital, with power devices, micro-sensors and actuators, up to MEMS. This high level of heterogeneity makes design a very challenging task, as each domain is supported by specific languages, modeling formalisms and simulation frameworks. A major issue is furthermore posed by simulation, that heavily impacts the design and verification loop and that is further complicated by such an heterogeneous context. This chapter provides a formalization of the typical abstraction levels and design domains of a smart system, with the goal of identifying a precise role in the design flow for co-simulation and simulation scenarios. Moreover, a methodology is proposed to move from the co-simulated heterogeneity to a simulatable homogeneous representation of the entire smart system at two level of abstraction: functional level and transactional level. At functional level, all components are implemented in C++, with the goal of understanding the role of the underlying synchronization and simulation semantics and their overhead on simulation performance. At transactional level, two wide-spread simulation frameworks, i.e., SystemC and SystemVue, are adopted to ease code integration, even in presence of very heterogeneous design flows.