Intel IXP2400, User Manual

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Development Tools User’s Guide 221
Foreign Model Simulation Extensions
7
Foreign Model simulation extensions are useful tools for simulating external hardware devices, and
for developing software.They extend the Transactor capabilities, which are cycle and data accurate
software models of the network processors.
Section 7.1 provides an overview of how foreign models are used. Section 7.2 describes how to
integrate foreign models with Transactors. Details of simulating media bus devices are discussed in
Section 7.4 . Section 7.5.1 contains some sample code.
7.1 Overview
Reasons to use Foreign Model simulation:
1. To interface hardware device models, and
2. To generate traffic on external busses,
These are illustrated in Figure 67 .
•
Interfacing hardware device models . Foreign modeling allows integration of models of
external hardware such as a MAC device or custom chip that is connected to the Media Bus.
This could be a software model of the external device or a design in a hardware simulator such
as Verilog. This includes the ability to interface with hardware models (such as a Verilog
model) which could reside on a remote machine.
Figure 67. Example of Foreign Model Usage
B0222-02
Media Bus
Verilog PLI
Transactor
Running Custom
Microcode
Foreign Model
Custom Verilog
Model
Transactor
Running Custom
Microcode
Foreign Mode
Generating
Media Bus
Transactions
Interfacing
Hardware Device
Model
Generating Traffic On
External Busses of the
Network Processors