System-Level Modeling in SystemC
In the past, the hardware design world standardized on two languages: VHDL and Verilog. Lately, there has been a growing interest in complementary languages that could be employed for descriptions at a much higher level of abstraction. The driving forces behind such efforts are the simultaneous increase in design complexity, with multi-million gate designs, and the increase in pressure to get designs out faster with first-time design success. Among those high-level languages, SystemC, System-Verilog, and SpecC represent the most widespread. These languages fuse a well-known syntax with powerful constructs, enabling the modeling and simulation of complex systems; in particular SystemC has grown more and more popular.
