Re: Exchange of mail on Test benches and benchmark requirements

[Scott Davidson <scottdav@hsmpk12a-s1>]

> From: Rainer Dorsch <rainer@rainer.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>
> 
> > Perhaps everyone submitting a circuit could also submit a form like this:
> > 
> > 
> >            RTL            |  Netlist               |  Library
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Design    VHDL | Verilog  | Verilog | EDIF | VHDL  | Verilog | Bench | Prop.
> > 
> > 
> > With checkmarks if the circuit were available in the particular format.
> > As time goes on, we could get more boxes filled in, as we got people to do 
> > translations, as Gordon suggests.  I definitely agree that for the first pass we 
> > do not need all the boxes checked. 
> > 
> 
> As a user, I need to read one of the file formats and build a graph-like data 
> structures in RAM. From my point of view, it would be much easier to use a 
> library which already can read one of these formats and build this data 
> structure (except I need a very special structure for my algorithm to work 
> efficient).
> 
> If such a library would be provided, I guess 80% of the tools would build on 
> this data structure and linking two tools together would be much easier. It is 
> somewhat offtopic, but if filters are created, this would be only little more 
> work and the tools would be much more comparable and _compatible_.
> 
> Maybe there is already something like this and I do not know it.
> 

I perhaps was not clear on the definition of library.  I mean a library giving the 
definition of the primitives used in the design - basically a cell library.  It sounds 
like you are describing a design database/framework.   I quite agree that it would be 
nice to have compatible tools, but I don't even hear anything about the CAD Framework
Initiative anymore.

Given that you will need to write a translator/filter, which of the commerically
available formats works best for you?

Thanks,

Scott

> 
> -- 
> Rainer Dorsch
> Abt. Rechnerarchitektur  e-mail:rainer.dorsch@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
> Uni Stuttgart            Tel.: 0711-7816-215
> 
> 

Scott Davidson
Sun Microsystems
scott.davidson@eng.sun.com