SystemCXML: An Exstensible SystemC Front end Using XML.

Abstract

To draw full benefit of the possibilities that system level design languages such as SystemC offer, we require tools that enhance the design experience through visual representation of models, improved debugging facilities, integrated development environments, etc. the primary task in providing these tools is the parsing of SystemC source to directly extract the structural design information. In this paper, we present a front end for SystemC called SystemCXML that uses an XML-based approach to achieve the extraction of structural information from SystemC models, which can be easily exploited by different 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.