scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1294429

Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to computer science (68-01) Software, source code, etc. for problems pertaining to computer science (68-04) Computer system organization (68M99)

Review text

This book describes provision of an Application Programming Interface (API) to a Verilog hardware description language. Verilog is one of the two (second is VHDL) most popular languages addressing the digital hardware design automation. In the case of Verilog the notion of Programming Language Interface (PLI) is used instead of API, and it is mainly a mechanism to invoke a C or C+ + function from a Verilog code. PLI is used for doing such things which would not have been possible otherwise using limited Verilog syntax. There are two distinct standardized and well-accepted versions of PLI, called PLI1.0 and PLI2.0. The Verilog language itself is a standard (IEEE \# 1364-1995). The book consists of 8 chapters. It begins with a quick introduction to PLI. The second chapter presents the basic mechanisms of interfacing a PLI application with a Verilog program. It is shown how the PLI routines may be integrated with the simulator, taking into account data-structures and databases, derived from the Verilog program. Linking the PLI routine with the main simulator is very similar to linking a library in a C program, however also reason and callback mechanisms are used. Linking procedures differ according to simulator (Verilog-XL, VCS). Chapter 3 presents utility routines. They are library functions defined to perform a wide variety of operations on the parameters passed to the system call. They are classified and listed. Chapter 4 describes the second set of library functions-access routines. Access routines, as the name suggests, are used to access the properties of a wide range of simulation objects. Access routines also introduce a new powerful data type called handle. Chapter 5 and 6 are most valuable since they show how to employ the library functions for real life applications in a fully functional PLI code. As an example the bus functional model is included. In Chapters 7 an 8 the PLI2.0 or Verilog Procedural Interface (VPI) is presented. The main reason for developing new generation of API has been to remove the inconsistencies and incompleteness that one encounters in both utility (tf) and access (acc) routines in PLI1.0. The book is a result of author's experience in building a distributed simulation environment. It contains a large deal of actual code of PLI procedures. It is recommended as a ``cookbook for developers of Verilog simulation environments.

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