MCF: A Metamodeling-based Visual Component Composition Framework

Abstract

Reusing {IP}-cores to construct system models facilitated by automatic generation of the glue-logic, and automated composability checks can help designers to create efficient system level models quickly and correctly for faster design space exploration. With the rise of multiple transaction level ({TL}), and register-transfer level ({RTL}) abstractions, constructing models with mixed abstraction levels is also important for designers. This chapter presents a framework that allows designers to (i) describe the structure of components, their interfaces, and their interactions with a semantically rich visual front end, (ii) automated selection of {IPs} from a component library based on sound type theoretic principles, and (iii) constraint based checks for composability is highly desirable in this context. Furthermore, using an {XML} based schema to store and process meta-information about the {IP} models, as well as the schematic visual model helps the process of {IP} selection and composition. With these in mind, we present {MCF}, a metamodelingbased component composition framework for {SystemC} based {IP} core composition at multiple and mixed abstraction levels, with all the advantages stated above. Keywords Metamodel, metamodeling framework, architectural template, component composition framework, {IP} composition, reuse