Applying the new ESL standards efficiently to raise the abstraction level and to meet the upcoming mixed-signal SoC challenges

In order to anticipate the development of embedded software ahead of silicon availability and validate architectural choices, SoC Virtual platforms are now widely used in the semiconductor industry. This requires relying on interoperable models and tools based on ESL standards. SystemC and SystemC AMS are standards in this area. While they offer a foundation layer for creating and assembling models, there are still a lot of items which have not been covered yet, and this has implied to develop proprietary extensions. At the same time, ever increasing SoCs complexity requires to move up at the level of abstraction, and consider not only the architectural (post HW/SW partitioning) level, but also the system level to address efficiently all the aspects of complex system design and verification including functional and non-functional ones.