Supervision : François PÊCHEUX

Principes et réalisation d'un environnement de prototypage virtuel de systèmes hétérogènes composables

Current and future microelectronics systems are more and more complex. In a aim to bridge the gap between the cyber/digital world and the physical world in which we evolve we observe the emergence of multi-disciplinary systems that interact more and more with their close surrounding environment. The conception of such systems requires the knowledge of multiple scientific disciplines (electrical, optical, thermal, mechanical, acoustic, chemical or biological) which tends to define them as heterogeneous systems. Designers of the upcoming digital-centric More-than-Moore systems are lacking a common design and simulation environment able to efficiently manage all the multi-disciplinary aspects of its components of various nature, which closely interact with each other.

In this thesis we explore the possibilities of developing and deploying a unified SystemC-based design environment for virtual prototyping of heterogeneous systems. In order to overcome the challenges related to their specification and dimensioning this environment must be able to simulate a complex heterogeneous system as a whole, for which each component is described and solved using the most appropriate Model of Computation (MoC).

We propose a simulator prototype called SystemC Multi Disciplinary Virtual Prototyping (MDVP) which is implemented as an extension of SystemC. It follows a correct-by-construction approach, relies on a hierarchical heterogeneity representation and interaction mechanisms with master-slave semantics in order to model heterogeneous systems. Generic algorithms allow for the elaboration, simulation and monitoring of such systems.

We also provide a methodology to incorporate new Models of Computation within the SystemC MDVP environment. We follow this methodology to integrate a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) MoC that allows for the description of fluidic network. This MoC is then used to model a prototype of a point-of-care blood analysis system.

Eventually, we realized a case study of a passive RFID reading system that requires several interacting MoCs in order to be modeled. We compare the simulation results with measures acquired on a real physical prototype of a passive RFID reading system.

2014-2017 Publications

• 2017
  • C. Ben Aoun : “Principes et réalisation d’un environnement de prototypage virtuel de systèmes hétérogènes composables”, thesis, phd defence 07/12/2017, supervision Pêcheux, François (2017)
• 2015
  • C. Ben Aoun, L. Andrade Porras, T. Maehne, F. Pêcheux, M.‑M. Louërat, A. Vachoux : “Pre-Simulation Elaboration of Heterogeneous Systems: The SystemC Multi-Disciplinary Virtual Prototyping Approach”, International Conference on Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modelling and Simulation (SAMOS XV), Samos, Greece, pp. 278-285 (2015)
  • L. Andrade Porras, T. Maehne, A. Vachoux, C. Ben Aoun, F. Pêcheux, M.‑M. Louërat : “Pre-Simulation Symbolic Analysis of Synchronization Issues between Discrete Event and Timed Data Flow Models of Computation”, The 2015 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition, DATE 2015, Grenoble, France, pp. 1671-1676 (2015)
  • L. Andrade Porras, C. Ben Aoun, B. Vernay, T. Maehne, F. Pêcheux, M.‑M. Louërat : “Understanding the Heterogeneous Hardware: Do not forget the interconnection!”, 2^nd Workshop Design Automation for Understanding Hardware Designs (DUHDe), Grenoble, France (2015)
• 2014
  • T. Maehne, Zh. Wang, L. Andrade Porras, B. Vernay, C. Ben Aoun, J.‑P. Chaput, M.‑M. Louërat, F. Pêcheux, A. Krust, G. Schroepfer, M. Barnasconi, K. Einwich, F. Cenni, O. Guillaume : “UVM-SystemC-AMS based Framework for the Correct by Construction Design of MEMS in their Real Heterogeneous Application Context,”, IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits, and Systems (ICECS), Marseille, France, pp. 862-865 (2014)