BEH(2)

ORIGIN

Cao&Vlsi cad tools

NAME

BEH - Generic behavioural data structures

DESCRIPTION

BEH is a generic data structure supporting vlsi concepts. It allows representation of a behavioral description in a data structure.

The goal of BEH is to define an ad hoc single data structure (object), with well known fixed meaning for each concept manipulated within a behavioural description. So any tools that needs to work with a behavioral view can be build upon it using these structures.

For each object (data structure), a set of functions has been defined in order to add, delete or access it. These functions are defined in a low-level library libBeh106.a. Some other functions are higher level. They are defined in a high-level library libBhl106.a. There are also some parsers-drivers. A pareser reads a behavioural description file in a given format and build up a complete BEH data base. A driver creates a text file in a given behavioural description format from a BEH data base. A VHDL parser-driver is available in the libBvl103.a library.

The behavioural view envolves the following notions:

figure
    behavioural representation of a circuit (see BEFIG).

port list
    ordered list of the circuit's logical ports (see BEPOR).

generic
    a global data (constants) relative to a circuit other than logical ports (see BEGEN).

simple output
    a simple output port of the circuit (see BEOUT).

bused output
    a bused output port of the circuit (see BEBUS).

input
    an input port of the circuit (see BERIN).

internal register
    an internal memorizing element (see BEREG).

internal signal
    an internal simple signal of the circuit (see BEAUX).

internal bus
    an internal bused signal of the circuit (see BEBUX).

assert
    a condition, noticed by the circuit designer, that insures a correct usage of the circuit. The validity of these conditions is to be checked continuously at run time (see BEMSG).

In order to use BEH, concepts on use of libraries are needed. And, since these libraries are under development, the code is subject to change.

To enable work, a static version of each library is always present for the user. Libraries and header files are suffixed by a number (the library's version). The programmer can prefer to work with an earlier version of a library rather than the most recent one. However, it is recommended to adapt softwares to libraries as soon as possible in order to spotlight potential compatibility problems before old libraries are removed.

A makefile is necessary for all BEH applications. This is required because any soft must be easily recompilable, and knowing the needed libraries for a BEH based program is not an easy matter. It can't be achieved an other way, so do use makefile.

For each behavioural description format a parser and a driver have been developed . These are organized in as many seperate libraries as description format. So if a parser or driver changes it is not needed to recompile BEH. Only a relink of the application is needed.

In terms of software organization, BEH is splitted into two libraries for the basic functions, a header file for structures and variable declarations, and , up to now, one parser-driver library for VHDL format.

It is to be noticed that library's version number is incremented when, at least, one function composing the library has been modified. Therefore, BEH libraries may evolve independently form each other.

Here follows the list of the libraries and their contents.

libBeh106.a:
    beh_addbefig,    beh_addbeaux,    beh_addbebux,
    beh_addbegen,    beh_addbebus,    beh_addbemsg,
    beh_addbeout,    beh_addbepor,    beh_addbereg,
    beh_addberin,    beh_addbiabl,    beh_addbinode,
    beh_delbefig,    beh_delbeaux,    beh_delbebux,
    beh_delbegen,    beh_delbebus,    beh_delbemsg,
    beh_delbeout,    beh_delbepor,    beh_delbereg,
    beh_delberin,    beh_delbiabl,    beh_delbinode,
    beh_frebefig,    beh_frebeaux,    beh_frebebux,
    beh_frebegen,    beh_frebebus,    beh_frebemsg,
    beh_frebeout,    beh_frebepor,    beh_frebereg,
    beh_freberin,    beh_frebiabl,    beh_frebinode,
    beh_rmvbefig,    beh_rmvbeaux,    beh_rmvbebux,
    beh_rmvbegen,    beh_rmvbebus,    beh_rmvbemsg,
    beh_rmvbeout,    beh_rmvbepor,    beh_rmvbereg,
    beh_rmvberin

libBhl106.a:
    beh_debug

The libraries are organized in such a way that no cycle can appear through calls. It means that if a given library a function calls another function in another library, then none of the functions of this one does call any function that belongs to the first library.

EXAMPLE

In order to use BEH libraries, one needs something like that in its makefile:
    HEADER = -I/labo/include
    LIB = -L/labo/lib -lBeh106 -lBhl102 -lBvl103 -lbdd120 -labl120 -lmut306

SEE ALSO

mbk(1), abl(2), bdd(1)

BUGS

Please e-mail to cao-vlsi@masi.ibp.fr for bug report and suggestions.