Simulation using Transaction Level Modeling : Implementation for ARA Modules

Abstract

Embedded systems are usually composed of deeply integrated hardware and software components. Design tools that offer co-simulation of hardware and software are very popular due to increase in time-to-market limits and increasing complexity of the system. These tools offer constructs to model hardware in a mainstream programming language. One of the popular approaches is SystemC and TLM 2.0. TLM 2.0 features allow us to model a system at a high level of abstraction that gains a considerable amount of simulation speed but lose accuracy. However, because of the flexible nature of SystemC we can model systems that are a hybrid of different levels of abstraction. In this thesis, we present a framework to model and simulate the Google ARA. ARA is an initiative by Google to enable users to create modular smartphones that are precisely tailored to their preferences. Google ARA uses UniPro as a communication protocol between the modules at the hardware level and Greybus at the application layer. We use TLM 2.0 and model the GPBridge subsystem of the Greybus system. The system provides simulation close to real-time but, also provide external interfaces that are cycle accurate and can be connected to any generic SystemC module. The framework also allows to connect this whole application to an Android machine.