A comparative study of modelling at different levels of abstraction in system on chip designs: a case study

Abstraction is s powerful technique for the design and implementation of complex systems. A model developed at a higher level of abstraction allows one to tackle complexity by initially hiding the details and elaborating them later. A higher level of abstraction typically has a positive effect on the simulation speed and ease of development of the model, but could affect the accuracy of the model developed. In this paper, we study the effect of model abstraction of a peripheral device developed at a higher level of abstraction using SystemC, and at the register transfer level using Verilog. The parameters compared are accuracy, simulation speed, flexibility, time to develop, code length and ease of verification. In our study to show that by raising the level of abstraction, one not only achieves better simulation speed, flexibility, ease of verification but also reduces time to develop and shorten code length. All this is achieved while being able to maintain almost the same accuracy.