Research
Scott March 7th, 2007
SystemC-on-a-Chip
- SystemC-on-a-Chip is a virtual platform framework that enables a student/designer to write SystemC applications at the logic, register transfer, behavioral or structural level, and immediately test that design on any real platform with real input/output that supports the virtual platform.
- In contrast to more traditional system design approaches, the SystemC-on-a-Chip framework does not rely on costly and difficult-to-use mapping/synthesis tool suites. Instead, SystemC applications are compiled and interpreted, allowing a designer to write, compile, and download a design to a real platform in minutes, and with access to all the real peripherals just as if the designer had actually mapped and synthesized the design to the platform. The SystemC-on-a-Chip framework thus allows for quick prototyping and testing on the real platform, complementing the simulation process on a standard PC and the final implementation on the platform.
- The SystemC-on-a-Chip framework can be useful in beginning digital design, embedded systems, and parallel computing courses, allowing students to focus on fundamental and good design/programming practices, and not on the often complex and difficult-to-use design flows for traditional platform programming that hinder productivity and cause frustration. Students with a background in C++ development will find SystemC more approachable than traditional hardware description languages(HDL) like VHDL or Verilog. Similarly, the SystemC-on-a-Chip framewrok compiles SystemC applications in seconds using a very familiar compilation process built on top of GCC. The SystemC-on-a-Chip framework can be used in conjunction with existing software simulation practices to give the user the satisfaction of seeing a design work on a real platform, and in a much more timely and simpler manner.
- Below shows a simple Windows interface that will soon be released that that allows a student to quickly and easily write SystemC code, and immediately run that code on the Xilinx Spartan 3E, without using any synthesis or mapping tools. One tool, fewer mistakes


Conference Papers
- Online SystemC Emulation Acceleration
Scott Sirowy, Chen Huang, and Frank Vahid
Design Automation Conference 2009 In Review [Slides] - Portable SystemC-on-a-Chip
Scott Sirowy, Bailey Miller, and Frank Vahid
International Conference on Hardware-Software Codesign and System Synthesis CODES-ISSS 2009
ESWeek October 2009 [Slides] - Lost in Space! Quantifying the Elements of FPGA Speedup
Scott Sirowy and Alessandro Forin
Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms ERSA 2009 - Interfacing Digital Mockups to Real-Time Medical Equipment
Scott Sirowy, Tony Givargis, and Frank Vahid
IEEE Engineering and Biology Society (EMBC) 2009 [Slides] - C is for Circuits: Capturing FPGA Circuits as Sequential Code for Portability
Scott Sirowy, Greg Stitt, and Frank Vahid
FPGA February 2008 [Slides] - Integrated Coupling and Clock Frequency
Assignment of Accelerators during Hardware/Software Partitioning
Scott Sirowy and Frank Vahid
International Embedded Systems Symposium (IESS) July 2007 [Slides] - Two-Level Microprocessor-Acclerator Partitioning
Scott Sirowy, Yonghui Wu, Stefano Lonardi, and Frank Vahid
Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE) April 2007 [Slides] - Clock Frequency Assignment for Multiple Clock Domain
Systems-on-a-Chip
Scott Sirowy, Yonghui Wu, Stefano Lonardi, and Frank Vahid
Design, Automation, and Test in Europe (DATE) April 2007[Slides] - Intelligent Icons: Integrating Lite-Weight
Data Mining and Visualization into GUI Operating Systems
Eamonn Keogh, Li Wei, Xiaopeng Xi, Stefano Lonardi, Jin Shieh, and Scott Sirowy
International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) December 2006 [Slides]
Workshop Papers
- Dynamic Acceleration Management for SystemC Emulation
Scott Sirowy, Chen Huang, and Frank Vahid
APRES 2009 [Slides] - Virtual Microcontrollers
Scott Sirowy, David Sheldon, Tony Givargis, and Frank Vahid
WESE October 2008 [Slides]
Journal Papers
- Achieving Time-Controllable Digital Mockup Execution using SystemC
Scott Sirowy, Bailey Miller, and Frank Vahid. In Review - Virtual Microcontrollers
Scott Sirowy, David Sheldon, Tony Givargis, and Frank Vahid. SIGBED Review 2009
Technical Reports
- Where’s the Beef? Why FPGAs are so Fast
Scott Sirowy and Alessandro Forin, Microsoft Research, 2008