The SPIRIT Consortium is a global organisation concerned with supply-chain collaboration looking to provide a practical answer to multi-vendor design-flow integration, says vice-chairman Christopher Lennard

Efficient multi-vendor design-flow support is vital for today’s system-design methodologies. Complex design-flow synchronisation requires a new kind of information exchange between tools and intellectual property (IP): configuration meta-data.

The SPIRIT Consortium, a global organisation focused on enabling efficient integration of IP and plug-in tools into SPIRIT-compliant design environments, is aiming to resolve these design-flow integration and synchronisation problems.

Since its formation in June 2003, the Consortium has delivered key technical systems for design-flow integration, and this is continuing with focused industry adoption in 2006.

To enable front-to-back design methodologies, system-on-chip (SoC) design companies need to integrate tool flows and IP sourced from multiple vendors. Time-to-market requirements also drive the need to implement concurrent design processes.

This means that hardware, software and system validation tasks are performed in parallel, and often by separate teams. There is a need for rapid synchronisation between these distinct design environments and domains of engineering expertise.

Added to this is the need to support all views of a design IP from abstract system models through to GDSII. These must share common configurations while exposing detail and integration requirements particular to each field-of-use. Critically, in today’s SoC design flows, tools and configurable IP need minimal flow integration overhead to maximise the value that they bring to the customer.

A conceptual example of a multi-vendor flow integration is shown in Figure 1, above.

The design representation must be kept consistent between all these IP views and environments. Clearly, there is no efficient way to manage configuration exchange between tools on a case-by-case basis. Management of concurrent SoC design-flows today requires a single, language-and-vendor neutral way to express IP, its configuration and integration requirements as it progresses through the refinement process.

The SPIRIT standard addresses this need for data-exchange with an XML schema and semantic rules for SoC configuration meta-data.

A design component can be described with SPIRIT meta-data enabling it to be automatically imported, assembled, configured, implemented, and verified consistently through all stages of a SPIRIT-compliant multi-vendor flow.

The SPIRIT standard also defines the notion of a generator, which is a stand-alone process able to run within a SPIRIT-compliant design environment. Generators enable the manipulation of SPIRIT components in the subsystem or the performing of key functions in the design process, such as design consistency checking.

The development of the SPIRIT standard has been split into two phases, the first (SPIRIT 1.x) addresses RTL design and verification flow integration, and the second (SPIRIT 2.x) addresses electronic system-level (ESL) design.

The first versions of the SPIRIT standard, v1.0 and v1.1, have been released to the public and are proven against production RTL design exchange.

The contents of a SPIRIT 1.x component definition include: top-level I/O, bus interfaces, definition of memory map, the various views of the IP, including the files required to ‘see’ a particular view, and implementation constraints which must be met in order for the IP to properly function within the subsystem.

The upcoming release SPIRIT v1.2 includes a language-neutral SOAP-based tight-generator interface (TGI). This enables third-party generators and SPIRIT-compliant point-tools to be efficiently interfaced into any SPIRIT compliant design environment, as in Figure 2.

The SPIRIT v2.0 standard will enable exchange of meta-data between designs at various levels of design-refinement. It will provide a way to identify IP models and their interface abstractions at any level of ESL abstraction, and support the specification of topological requirements for assembling a system-model from a library of IP models and transactors.

SPIRIT v2.0 will also cover transactional verification IP, and it will support SPIRIT v1.0 features for backwards compatibility.

The SPIRIT Consortium's first specification v1.0 was released in December 2004 with multi-vendor demonstrations of the technology. Since then, membership of the organisation has grown significantly. It includes most major EDA and IP suppliers and significant representation from the system-design integration community

The strong supply-chain representation provides a broad-base for adoption. This is further driven by the Consortium’s requirement that the contributing membership validate and demonstrate the technology features prior to each specification release. Further to the proof-of-concept demonstrations, the SPIRIT Consortium has required and obtained strong messages on product support by all contributing members.

In an example of real-world validation of the SPIRIT standards, ARM has proven each version of the standard on the ARM1176JZ-S PrimeXsys Platform, an ARM systems-IP product.

The SPIRIT Consortium plans to release two significant specifications in 2006.

The SPIRIT v1.2 Specification, now under review by the SPIRIT membership, offers a complete system for integration of RTL-based IP and tooling. This will be provided into the IEEE for official standardisation in early Q1 2006.

In Q2 2006, the Consortium will provide the SPIRIT v2.0 specification to the public.

This is the first specification to address ESL methodologies, in particular consistency for integration and configuration requirements within multi-abstraction designs. A pre-release version of v2.0 will be available to SPIRIT members at the end of 2005. As with the v1.x specification, SPIRIT v2.x is expected to be matured by industry adoption before being released to the IEEE.

The SPIRIT Consortium is meeting an industry need to create and commercially validate standards that enable efficient integration of IP and plug-in tools into multi-vendor design flows. As an organisation, it will continue to respond to these needs and priorities. It envisages moving to accommodate an even greater degree of openness and global geographical representation, while at all times maintaining a hard-won reputation as a fast-acting and adoption focused consortium.

Christopher Lennard is vice-chairman of SPIRIT Consortium and ESL strategic marketing manager at ARM

www.spiritconsortium.com