SystemCXML: An Exstensible SystemC Front end Using XML

The proliferation of system level design methodologies and frameworks is a direct result of the efforts in dealing with the productivity gap. Consequentially, System Level Design Languages such as SystemVerilog and SystemC are particularly fit for high level design methods such as design space exploration and assisted design refinement. However, to draw full benefit of these methods requires the introduction of tools that promote a better design experience by providing visual representation of models, better debugging facilities, integrated development environments, etc. In particular, we experiment with SystemC and realize that the foremost task in providing these tools necessitates the parsing of SystemC source to directly access the structural design information. It is desirable to perform the parsing in an unintrusive manner such that neither the model, the SystemC source, nor the compiler require alterations. In this paper, we present a front end for SystemC called SystemCXML that uses an XML-based approach to extract structural information from SystemC models, which can be easily exploited by back end passes for analysis, visualization and other structural analysis purposes. Our unique approach uses the documentation system Doxygen and an Open Source XML parser. We demonstrate its extensibility by incorporating an automated graph generator that visualizes the SystemC module hierarchy, which is implemented in merely 60 lines of code. SystemCXML: An Extensible SystemC Front End Using XML David Berner, Hiren Patel, Deepak Mathaikutty, Sandeep Shukla, Jean-Pierre Talpin, {david.berner,talpin}@irisa.fr {hiren,damathai,shukla}@vt.edu, SystemCXML: An Extensible SystemC Front End Using XML David Berner, Hiren Patel, Deepak Mathaikutty, Jean-Pierre Talpin, Sandeep Kumar Shukla INRIA, France Virgina Tech, USA {dberner,talpin}@irisa.fr {hiren,damathai,shukla}@vt.edu