Dynamic bridging of interface protocols

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9916404-B2
Application number	US-201313912097-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 6, 2013
Priority date	Jun 11, 2012
Publication date	Mar 13, 2018
Grant date	Mar 13, 2018

Abstract

Systems and methods for protocol bridging for a system level modeling simulation (SLMS), such as a SYSTEMC simulation where the components communicate using a TLM2.0 application programming interface (API). The method includes accessing design configuration information describing a first component of the SLMS that uses a first communication protocol and a second component of the SLMS that uses a second communication protocol. Run-time bridging logic is inserted between the first component and the second component based on the design configuration information. The run-time bridging logic is inserted at initialization of the SLMS and configured to bridge the first communication protocol of the first component and the second communication protocol of the second component.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of protocol bridging comprising:
accessing design configuration information describing a first representation of a first hardware block within an integrated circuit (IC) die that uses a first communication protocol and a second representation of a second hardware block within the IC die that uses a second communication protocol, wherein the first representation of the first hardware block and the second representation of the second hardware block communicate via a transaction level modeling application programming interface (API);
generating run-time bridging logic based on at least one of: the design configuration information, and one or more callbacks that translate one or more attributes between the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol; and
inserting, by modifying one or more interface method calls of the API, the run-time bridging logic between the first representation of the first hardware block that uses the first communication protocol and the second representation of the second hardware block that uses the second communication protocol, the run-time bridging logic configured to bridge the first communication protocol of the first representation of the first hardware block and the second communication protocol of the second representation of the second hardware block.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the run-time bridging logic is further based on protocol specifications describing the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the run-time bridging logic is further based on a state translation table that includes mappings of states between different communication protocols.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
intercepting, by the run-time bridging logic, at least one communication payload formatted for the first communication protocol that is sent from the first representation of the first hardware block to the second representation of the second hardware block.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
accessing at least one communication payload formatted for the first communication protocol sent from the first representation of the first hardware block to the second representation of the second hardware block; and
translating, by the run-time bridging logic, the at least one communication payload from the first communication protocol to the second communication protocol.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein translating the at least one communication payload comprises:
receiving a request from the second representation of the second hardware block for a protocol specific attribute that is specific to the second communication protocol; and
invoking, with the run-time bridging logic, an attribute mapping callback of the one or more callbacks that includes logic to map information in the payload to the protocol specific attribute that is specific to the second communication protocol.

7. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:
sending the protocol specific attribute to the second representation of the second hardware block.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the at least one communication payload includes a first protocol state of the first communication protocol, and translating the at least one communication payload comprises:
mapping, with the run-time bridging logic, the first protocol state of the first communication protocol to a second protocol state of the second communication protocol.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the run-time bridging logic is generated based on the design configuration information that comprises a connectivity map of the first representation of the first hardware block and the second representation of the second hardware block.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the run-time bridging logic is generated by adding to the run-time bridging logic one or more references that invoke the one or more callbacks on demand.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving a request to perform the translation of the one or more attributes between the first and second communication protocols; and
using, in response to the request, the one or more references in the run-time bridging logic to invoke the one or more callbacks that translate the one or more attributes between the first and second communication protocols.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first representation of the first hardware block is a first simulation representation of the first hardware block and the second representation of the second hardware block is a second simulation representation of the second hardware block, and wherein the run-time bridging logic is inserted at initialization of a system level modeling simulation (SLMS).

13. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing processor executable instructions for protocol bridging, the instructions comprising instructions for:
accessing design configuration information describing a first representation of a first hardware block within an integrated circuit (IC) die that uses a first communication protocol and a second representation of a second hardware block within the IC die that uses a second communication protocol, wherein the first representation of the first hardware block and the second representation of the second hardware block communicate via a transaction level modeling application programming interface (API);
generating run-time bridging logic based on at least one of: the design configuration information, and one or more callbacks that translate one or more attributes between the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol; and
inserting, by modifying one or more interface method calls of the API, the run-time bridging logic between the first representation of the first hardware block that uses the first communication protocol and the second representation of the second hardware block that uses the second communication protocol, the run-time bridging logic configured to bridge the first communication protocol of the first representation of the first hardware block and the second communication protocol of the second representation of the second hardware block.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions for:
generating the run-time bridging logic further based on protocol specifications describing the first communication protocol and the second communication protocol.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions for:
generating the run-time bridging logic further based on a state translation table that includes mappings of states between different communication protocols.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions for:
intercepting, by the run-time bridging logic, at least one communication payload formatted for the first communication protocol that is sent from the first representation of the first hardware block to the second representation of the second hardware block.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 13 , the instructions further comprising instructions for:
accessing at least one communication payload formatted for the first communication protocol sent from the first representation of the first hardware block to the second representation of the second hardware block; and
translating, by the run-time bridging logic, the at least one communication payload from the first communication protocol to the second communication protoc

Assignees

• Synopsys Inc

Inventors

• Garg Amit
• Gupta Soniya

Classifications

• G06F30/20 Primary

  Design optimisation, verification or simulation (optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30) · CPC title

• G06F17/5009

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F17/5022 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06F30/3308 Primary

  using simulation · CPC title

• G06F30/33

  Design verification, e.g. functional simulation or model checking · CPC title