IP-XACT, an XML representation of IP (intellectual property), facilitates SoC integration tools to perform intelligent configuration, automatic integration, and easy problem debugging. Current version of IP-XACT only has interface types and parameters of an IP. It doesn’t include any information of the functionality or specifications of the IPs. Our goal is defining IP-XACT++ (Figure 1), an extended version of IP-XACT, to encapsulate all the information needed for system generator, and port known IPs into the database. Doing this is really useful in finding the optimum SoC design based on user specifications.
Figure 1: Example of IP-XACT++
The optional meta-data added in the IP-XACT++ format contains two kinds of information:
1. The information which summarizes IP performance, e.g. power consumption.
2. The information which is crucial for appropriate functioning of the IP, e.g. valid input voltage range.
This optional meta-data information along with a circuit netlist or Verilog description facilitates the search of an optimum (that meets the user specifications) IP from extremely large list of IPs. For this purpose, we implemented the “Datasheet Scrubber”, which categorizes the IP based on its circuit functionality and save the information in IP-XACT++ format.