Design for Verification of SystemC Transaction Level Models

Abstract

Transaction level modeling allows several SoC design architectures to be explored, leading to better performance and easier verification of the final product. We present an approach to design and verify SystemC models at the transaction level. We integrate the verification as part of the design-flow. In this approach, we first model both the design and the properties (written in PSL - Property Specification Language) in UML. Then, we translate them into an intermediate format modeled by abstract state machines (ASM). The ASM model is used to generate an FSM of the design including the properties. Checking the correctness of the properties is performed on-the-fly while generating the state machine. Finally, we translate the verified design to SystemC and map the properties to a set of assertions (as monitors in C#) that can be re-used to validate the design at lower levels through simulation. We illustrate our approach on two case studies, the PCI bus standard and a generic master/slave architecture from the SystemC library.