Release Notes - UVM Connect

These notes provide information about version updates, bugfixes, known issues, changes to supported platforms, etc. Updates and changes made prior to public release are not included.

Summary

Release Notes - UVM Connect
These notes provide information about version updates, bugfixes, known issues, changes to supported platforms, etc.
UVM Connect v2. 3.2 - Nov 2019
UVM Connect v2. 3.1 - May 2015	Notes for release v2.3.1
Feature summary
Bugzilla fixes
UVM Connect v2. 3.0 - March 2015	Notes for release v2.3.0
Feature summary	This uvmc-2.3.0/ library is a variation of the original uvmc-2.2/ library that has had the following additional features added:
Support for “fast packers”	The uvmc-2.3.0 release adds support for “fast packers” for the specific case of passing TLM generic payloads (class uvm_tlm_generic_payload) across UVM-Connect’ed sockets.
Support for SC <-> SC peer UVM-Connect’ions	Previously support for SC <-> SC peer UVM-Connect’ions did not exist but was added to allow SystemC applications to create UVM-Connect’ions without knowing apriori whether the opposite endpoint will be in a SystemC model or an SV-UVM model.
Support for SystemC standalone libraries	In addition to support for native Questa (and VCS and IUS) compiled SystemC libraries, support was also added for standalone libraries that can be used with OSCI SystemC and Vista SystemC.
Support for “configuration extensions”	Configuration extensions are ignorable extensions (in the sense of TLM-2.0 generic payloads) that can be used to pass configurations which accompany generic payloads that travel from TLM-2.0 initiators to targets.
Support for order-independent rendezvous	The uvmc-2.3.0 release has been enhanced to allow for order-independent rendezvous of TLM port connections.
UVM Connect v2. 2 - August 2012	Notes for release v2.2.
UVM Connect v2. 1.4 - February 2012	Notes for release v2.1.4.

UVM Connect v2. 3.2 - Nov 2019

----------
11-2-19: Updates after VCS, UVM-1.2 testing; UVM-Connect forum feedbabck

M examples/config_exts/common/producer_loopback_dual_ports.svh M examples/config_exts/common/producer_loopback.svh

Changed gp.clear_extension( configExt ) to gp.clear_extensions() due to apparent problem with how UVM TLM GP extensions are cleared in UVM library.

A examples/osci_tests/

Added new examples/osci_tests/ suite for testing on OSCI SystemC 2.3.2

M examples/commands/ex_config.cpp M examples/commands/ex_factory.cpp M examples/commands/ex_phase_control.cpp M examples/commands/ex_print_topology.cpp M examples/commands/ex_reporting.cpp

Changed top module naming to match instance labels rather than module name in better accordance with convention.

M examples//gold/

General Improvements to gold file filtering and associated updates to gold files.

M examples/commands/run_questa M examples/connections/run_questa M examples/converters/run_questa M examples/field_types/run_questa

Simplification of basic go_nogo test ‘run_questa’ script to simply use Questa UVM and UVMC pre-built libraries and default gcc compiler.

M examples/common/Makefile.questa M examples/converters/Makefile.questa

Added fixes for new USE_AMBIENT_GCC usage mode. The purpose here is to distinguish between Questa compile/run use models to either depend on default GCC version and pre-built UVM and UVMC libraries for native Questa release, or, to override the GCC version some supported version different from the default one, and to override UVMC library to be one that is explicitly built up outside the Questa install area rather than the pre-built on.

”Ambient gcc” refers to the gcc/g++ found in the shell environment (i.e. stipulated by $PATH variable) rather than Questa’s default gcc/g++.

M examples/common/Makefile.vcs

Updates and cleanups after qualifying UVMC examples/ on VCS L-2016.06

M examples/connections/common/producer2.sv M examples/connections/common/producer.sv M examples/connections/common/scoreboard.sv M lib/Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone M src/connect/sv/uvmc_commands.sv

Updates, fixes after qualification on UVM-1.2.
Fixes to examples to make compatible with UVM-1.2. raise_objection() and drop_objection() methods of phase objects cannot be called unless it is pre-determined that that phase is not yet done.
For uvmc_commands.sv the way of calling the report() function with specific severities had to be made more rigid with stronger type checking in the case of uvm-1.2 usage vs uvm-1.1d.

M lib/.toolsrc

Brought .toolsrc template settings up to date. This is the helper script referenced in each of the Env.script ENV setup files for each test.

M src/connect/sc/uvmc_tlm_gp_converter.cpp M src/connect/sc/uvmc_xl_converter.cpp

Improvements in response to input from users on UVM-Connect forum of Verification Academy
Replaced use of std::map with std::set to avoid memory leak for VCS_OR_NCSC mode. The logic for the duplicated_storage_map was causing map entries to grow without bound and not be trimmed after entries were done being used.
Cleaned up manner of handling VCS vendor-specific way of copying data payloads to/from C “chandles”. For newer versions of VCS this logic broke. New VCS way of handling vendor-specific data representation is now more straightforward and consistent with other vendors.

M src/connect/sv/uvmc_converter.svh M src/connect/sv/uvmc_xl_converter.svh

Changed optimization in the “fast packer” converters to check for !t.is_read() rather than the former t.is_write(). This allows for usage of the TLM_IGNORE_COMMAND command type in conjunction with fast packers which proves to useful in certain usage scenarios.
This optimization was put in in the first place because fast packers take great care to avoid extra data copies of payloads, byte enables, etc. where not necesary.

----------
=+= 9-7-19: UVM-Connect misc fixes, improvements.

M src/connect/sc/uvmc_channels.h

Fix from Bugzilla 77644 to play const_cast trick for non const

:wait_connected() method (see comments in this source file).

M lib/Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone M lib/Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone_osci M lib/Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone_vista

Modifications to UVMC build scripts to add SNPS Virtualizer support
Upgraded OSCI libraries to support for SystemC 2.3.2

----------
=+= 4-4-18: Improvements to UVM-Connect library


M       xl_uvmc/uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_xl_config.cpp
M       xl_uvmc/uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_xl_config.h
M       xl_uvmc/xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_xl_config.cpp
M       xl_uvmc/xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_xl_config.h

  - Documentation improvements
  - Efficiency improvements to get_partsel_bit(), put_partsel_bit() functions
    in class uvmc_xl_config.
  - Fixes so that both static and sideband config payloads can be
    independently overriden with external payload storage. And that the
    deletion operators are made cognizant of this option.

----------
=+= 1-8-18: Added new UVM example and documentation section

A       shared/xl_uvmc/uvmc-2.3/examples/config_exts/
            common/loopback_dual_ports.h
            common/producer_loopback_dual_ports.svh
            common/producer_loopback.h
            sv2sc2sv_xl_gp_converter_loopback_dual_ports.cpp
            sv2sc2sv_xl_gp_converter_loopback_dual_ports.sv

  - Added new UVM example and documentation section showing technique to
    create 2 instances of UVM TLM target ports each with their own dedicated
    ::b_transport() callbacks.

----------
=+= 10-10-17: Bug fixes and general improvements to UVM-Connect and XL-UVM-Connect

trunk/shared/xl_uvmc/

A       uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/consumer.sv
A       uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/producer.h
A       uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/sc_converter_bidir_trans.cpp
A       uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/sv_converter_bidir_trans.sv
A       xl-uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/consumer.sv
A       xl-uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/producer.h
A       xl-uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/sc_converter_bidir_trans.cpp
A       xl-uvmc-2.3/examples/converters/sv_converter_bidir_trans.sv

  - Added new test for checking UVMC connections in 2 directions as received
    from user on UVMC forum on Verification Academy

  - Fixed up UVMC and XL-UVMC regressions so that they can easily be run
    recursively in root area using test_drive.csh methodology as is deployed
    under examples/xl_vip/Makefile. This required tweaks of the UVMC
    env scripts and some other minor adjustments to Makefile's.

M       uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_common.cpp
M       xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_connect.cpp
M       uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sv/uvmc_tlm2.sv
M       xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sv/uvmc_tlm2.sv

  - Fixed bug as received from user on UVMC forum on
    Verification Academy where masking and checking for compatible port
    connections was not being done correctly. See changes above for new
    regression test added to examples/converters/ to test for this issue.

  - Fixed issue found in uvmc_tlm2.sv where
    nb_transport_fw,bw() calls were not properly checking return status for
    UVM_TLM_COMPLETED.

M       uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_connect.cpp
M       xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_connect.cpp

  - Fixed bug from user on UVMC forum where 'filename' was being incorrectly
    referenced as 'file' in error message.

M       xl-uvmc-2.3/src/connect/sc/uvmc_export_stubs.cpp

UVM Connect v2. 3.1 - May 2015

Notes for release v2.3.1

Feature summary

Added ‘run_questa’ scripts in several of the examples/ tests to illustrate quickly to users how to compile UVMC libraries and run examples as an alternative flow to the ‘Makefile’ driven flow documented in the Quickstart 1-2-3 to running examples section of the UVMC documentation package.

Bugzilla fixes

37689: Set byte_enable ptr to NULL if byte_en_length is zero
77177: SC compile error on UVMC TLM1 transport connections
77205: Indexing bug in uvmc_packer ::pack_sc_bv_base()
77457: UVMC package compile error when UVM package compiled with +define+UVM_NO_DEPRECATED
77644: UVM Connect needs wait() before first peek()
77720: Customer reports that unqualified references to int64 and uint64 in UVM-Connect clash with customer defined typedefs

UVM Connect v2. 3.0 - March 2015

Notes for release v2.3.0

Feature summary

This uvmc-2.3.0/ library is a variation of the original uvmc-2.2/ library that has had the following additional features added:

Support for “fast packers”
Support for SC <-> SC peer UVM-Connect’ions
Support for SystemC standalone libraries
Support for “configuration extensions”
Support for order-independent rendezvous

Support for “fast packers”

The uvmc-2.3.0 release adds support for “fast packers” for the specific case of passing TLM generic payloads (class uvm_tlm_generic_payload) across UVM-Connect’ed sockets.

These “fast packers” add two features,

Improved performance
Support for TLM generic payloads with no fixed limitations on data payload sizes (i.e. unlimited data payloads)

There are two flavors of fast packers,

1. class uvmc_xl_converter
2. class uvmc_tlm_gp_converter

The two new classes have both been enhanced for better performance than the default packers, and both support unlimited payloads. But there are slightly differing semantics for each of the two.

The class uvmc_xl_converter conforms in the strictest sense to the required semantics of the TLM-2.0 base protocol specifically with respect to modifiability of attributes (see IEEE 1666-2011 section on TLM-2.0 base protocol), and thus does not indiscriminately transfer all fields of the generic payload in both directions across the language boundary. Rather it decides, depending on the mode of the transaction (READ or WRITE), and whether it is being transferred along the forward, backward, or return paths, which fields to transfer and which to leave alone.
The class uvmc_tlm_gp_converter has the same features of unlimited payload size and efficient data payload passing techniques that use “C assist” and “pass by reference” that version #1 above does, but it is unconditionally transferring all fields of the generic payload along all paths without regard to modifiability of attributes which is more semantically compatible with the slower, size limited default packer.
For the packers themselves see,

src/connect/
  sc/uvmc_tlm_gp_converter.*
  sc/uvmc_xl_converter.*
  sv/uvmc_converter.svh
  sv/uvmc_xl_converter.svh

Specifically see sc/uvmc_tlm_gp_converter.h for an explanation of when you would want to use class uvmc_tlm_gp_converter vs. class uvmc_xl_converter.
For examples that use them see

examples/xlerate.connections/Makefile

Support for SC <-> SC peer UVM-Connect’ions

Previously support for SC <-> SC peer UVM-Connect’ions did not exist but was added to allow SystemC applications to create UVM-Connect’ions without knowing apriori whether the opposite endpoint will be in a SystemC model or an SV-UVM model. It also provides a very easy, intuitive way to bind SystemC TLM-2.0 ports and let the overloaded variations of the uvmc_connect() function automatically figure out whether they are initiator port or target export bindings. Just pass the port and the ID string and Presto ! UVM-Connect figures out the rest !

Support for SystemC standalone libraries

In addition to support for native Questa (and VCS and IUS) compiled SystemC libraries, support was also added for standalone libraries that can be used with OSCI SystemC and Vista SystemC.

You will find special Makefile’s for the standalone libraries here,

lib/
  Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone_questa
  Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone_osci
  Makefile.uvmc_sysc_standalone_vista

These each build a library called uvmc.so which can be directly linked into the Questa, OSCI SystemC or Vista SystemC kernel program respectively.

NOTE: For the case of OSCI and Vista this assumes SV-UVM is not even being used. In fact, the SV-UVM infrastructure is completely removed from these libraries. They only support peer SC <-> SC UVM-Connect’ions for these use models.

See Compiling Standalone SystemC Libraries in the main UVM Connect->Introduction section for more info on how to build these standalone libraries.

Support for “configuration extensions”

Configuration extensions are ignorable extensions (in the sense of TLM-2.0 generic payloads) that can be used to pass configurations which accompany generic payloads that travel from TLM-2.0 initiators to targets.

The UVMC config extension base class uvmc_xl_config contains a simple abstraction of a set configuration registers that can act as shadows of the associated configuration register set one might find in the target model.

There are two types of configuration extensions that are handled by class uvmc_xl_config,

1. Static configuration register

Static configurations are sent as separate dedicated transactions to update configuration register sets on the target side of the connection.
Static configs can be used for configuring things that don’t change often such as UART baud rate, AXI randomized wait state bounds and cross channel latencies.

2. Sideband configuration register

Sideband confgurations are unconditionally sent with each and every generic payload transaction along the forward path to the target.
These should be used for things that typically change as frequently as every transaction such as tid’s for AXI transactions, tags for Wishbone transactions, etc.

NOTE: The class uvmc_xl_config TLM GP extension is designed to be used only with TLM GPs passed to the class uvmc_xl_converter fast packer described above. You can attach them to TLM GPs that use other packers but the extension itself may not accompany the TLM GP across the TLM channel in that case (certainly not for UVMC default converters or class uvmc_tlm_gp_converter fast packers).

For the config extensions themselves see,

src/connect/
  sc/uvmc_xl_config.*
  sv/uvmc_xl_config.svh

Support for order-independent rendezvous

The uvmc-2.3.0 release has been enhanced to allow for order-independent rendezvous of TLM port connections. There is now a more relaxed dependency on the ordering between when an SV-side peer uvmc_connect()’s its port and when the SC-side peer does so. Same applies for SystemC peer-to-peer UVM-Connect’ions.

This allows more flexibly for “late bindings” of UVM-Connect’ions. Only requirement is that no transaction communication is done on any cross-language port that has not been bound. An error will occur if any such attempts are prematurely made before all peers have connected.

UVM Connect v2. 2 - August 2012

Notes for release v2.2.

OVM Support. You can now compile UVM Connect to work with OVM 2.1.1 or greater. Compile libraries with OVM=1

cd $UVMC_HOME/lib
make -f Makefile.<tool> OVM=1 all
cd $UVMC_HOME/examples_ovm/connections
make -f Makefile.<tool> sv2sc

See <Using with OVM> for details.

Added support for two other vendors’ simulators (UVM only).
Added ability to set stack size for SC background processes used to make blocking calls on behalf of SV initiators.
Refactored internal implementation for efficiency
Improved some messages.
Removed registration of both lookup string and port hierarchical name. Only one will ever be used. So, if lookup string provided, that is what is used to match against other ports. Otherwise, the port’s full name is registered as the lookup string.
Removed inclusion of Questa-specific libraries to reduce size of distribution. Compiling UVM Connect is quick and straight-forward no matter what simulator you are using. See <Compiling Libraries> for how to compile the UVM (or OVM) and UVM Connect libraries.

UVM Connect v2. 1.4 - February 2012

Notes for release v2.1.4.

Key additions to this release include

Improved TLM2 support
More comprehensive User Guide with supporting examples, all documented
Support for hierarchical connections, i.e. wrapping foreign models and promoting their TLM connections to native TLM ports using UVM Connect.
Additional examples, reorganized. All examples are found in $UVMC_HOME/examples. See the Overview page in the online documentation for information on running the examples included in this kit.
HTML documentation added.

While the kit is intended to work with all three simulators, correct operation on other simulators has not been verified.

Version requirements

UVM 1.1a	see Overview for instructions on enabling earlier versions
Questa 10.1	see Overview for minor restrictions for use with 10.0c or later.

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