New open source initiative seeks to push SystemC adoption

Dylan McGrath
(05/19/2005 3:22 PM EDT)

SAN FRANCISCO — A new open source initiative has been established to encourage SystemC use through the development of infrastructure to complement capabilities developed by the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI) and commercial EDA providers.

The initiative, known as GreenSocs, wants to provide a mechanism for allowing companies to share and standardize SystemC intellectual property (IP).

Mark Burton, who is driving the initiative, said that system-level design adoption has been slow in part because of the lack of SystemC IP infrastructure.

"Right now, the cost of starting a new project using SystemC is the cost of building the whole infrastructure," Burton said. "Companies are realizing that it would be beneficial to them to donate what they do have to the open environment."

GreenSocs, though in its early stages, has already received IP contributions from STMicroelectronics and Verimag, a French embedded systems research center. Burton said GreenSocs has also received contributions from other companies that he cannot yet disclose.

Burton said that GreenSocs would coordinate and promote collaboratively developed models, methods and utilities, prioritized by designer needs, to promote faster adoption of SystemC. The benefits of this, he said, would be to lower costs, enable higher degrees of IP reuse and interchange and enable EDA companies to build tools in support of standards.

GreenSocs includes a commercial component, also headed by Burton, former chair of the OSCI Transaction Level Modeling Working Group. The commercial component offers consulting and engineering services designed to help companies contribute IP to GreenSocs for standardization.

Burton plans to hold a "Birds-of-a-Feather" session at the upcoming Design Automation Conference in Anaheim, Calif. on June 15. The idea behind the session, Burton said, is to bring people together to discuss GreenSocs and the types of IP that could be contributed for standardization.