It finally happened. The IEEE Standards organization ratified SystemC version 2.1 as standard 1666-2005. This is great news for the ESL community and EDA vendors. There is finally a document to establish what is standard. Quoting from the press release:
PISCATAWAY, N.J., USA, 12 December 2005 The IEEE has approved a new electronic design standard for the SystemC 2.1 language. The standard, IEEE 1666(TM), “Standard SystemC Language Reference Manual,” addresses the increasing complexity of system-on-chip (SoC) design at the systems level, where the most substantial performance and productivity gains in semiconductors can be made.
IEEE 1666, the definitive description of the SystemC 2.1 design language, broadens hardware and software modeling capabilities to higher levels of abstraction. It lets engineers architect entire systems from the start, which speeds design, and allows for the sharing and reuse of intellectual property (IP).
“IEEE 1666 was developed rapidly within the IEEE Corporate Standard Program in less than 8 months, a significant achievement in the evolution of a standard,” said Chuck Adams, chair of the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) Corporate Advisory Group (CAG). “I want to thank the Open SystemC Initiative and its working groups for delivering a high-quality specification earlier this year. Their outstanding technical contribution and cooperation with the IEEE P1666 Working Group made the standards process very efficient and has led to a clearly defined, system-level design standard.”
In addition to spanning design and verification from concept to implementation in hardware and software, the new standard also provides an interoperable modeling platform for developing and exchanging fast system-level C++ models. It also forms a bridge between architectural design and register-transfer-level (RTL) implementation, providing a platform for the creation of interoperable tools in a rich design environment.
