Modeling heterogeneous SoCs with SystemC: a digital/MEMS case study

  • Authors:
  • Ankush Varma;M. Yaqub Afridi;Akin Akturk;Paul Klein;Allen R. Hefner;Bruce Jacob

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Maryland, College Park, MD and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD;National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD;University of Maryland, College Park, MD;Intel Corporation, Chandler, AZ;National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD;University of Maryland, College Park, MD

  • Venue:
  • CASES '06 Proceedings of the 2006 international conference on Compilers, architecture and synthesis for embedded systems
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

Designers of SoCs with non-digital components, such as analog or MEMS devices, can currently use high-level system design languages, such as SystemC, to model only the digital parts of a system. This is a significant limitation, making it difficult to perform key system design tasks -- design space exploration, hardware-software co-design and system verification -- at an early stage. This paper describes lumped analytical models of a class of complex non-digital devices -- MEMS microhotplates -- and presents techniques to integrate them into a SystemC simulation of a heterogeneous System-on-a-Chip (SoC). This approach makes the MEMS component behavior visible to a full-system simulation at higher levels, enabling realistic system design and testing. The contributions made in this work include the first SystemC models of a MEMS-based SoC, the first modeling of MEMS thermal behavior in SystemC, and a detailed case study of the application of these techniques to a real system. In addition, this work provides insights into how MEMS device-level design decisions can significantly impact system-level behavior; it also describes how full-system modeling can help detect such phenomena and help to address detected problems early in the design flow.