Laurent Maillet-Contoz, STMicroelectronics
Andrew C. Goodrich
-
IMPORTANT
-
What's new in this release?
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New features
-
Bug fixes and enhancements
-
Incompatibilities with previous releases
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C++17 support
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Experimental features
-
Known problems
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Fixed-point library
This is the release of the SystemC 3.0.0 Class Library. This release implements the IEEE 1666-2023 Language Reference Manual.
- This release is supported on the following platform combinations for which it has been tested:
OS | Target | Compiler |
---|---|---|
Ubuntu 20.04 | amd64 | gcc 9.4.0 |
Ubuntu 20.04 | arm64 | gcc 9.4.0 |
Ubuntu 22.04 | amd64 | gcc 11.4.0 |
Ubuntu 22.04 | arm64 | gcc 11.4.0 |
AlmaLinux 8 | amd64 | gcc 8.5.0 |
AlmaLinux 8 | arm64 | gcc 8.5.0 |
AlmaLinux 9 | amd64 | gcc 11.4.1 |
AlmaLinux 9 | arm64 | gcc 11.4.1 |
Debian 12.5 | amd64 | gcc 12.3.0 |
Debian 12.5 | amd64 | gcc 13.2.0 |
Debian 12.5 | amd64 | gcc 13.2.0 with --std=c++20 |
Rhel 7.9 | x86_64 | gcc 9.3.0 |
Rhel 8.8 | amd64 | gcc 9.4.0 |
Rhel 8.8 | amd64 | gcc 13.1.0 |
Rhel 8.8 | amd64 | clang 17.0.6 |
Rhel 8.9 | amd64 | gcc 8.5.0 |
Rhel 8.9 | amd64 | gcc 11.2.1 |
Rhel 8.9 | amd64 | gcc 12.2.1 |
Rhel 8.9 | amd64 | coside clang 16.0.6 |
Rhel 8.9 | amd64 | coside gcc 13.1.0 |
Windows 10 | msvc16 (2019) | |
Windows 11 | msvc16 (2019) | |
Windows 11 | msvc17 (2022) | |
macOS 12 (Monterey) | x86_64 | AppleClang 13 |
macOS 12 (Monterey) | arm64 | AppleClang 13 |
macOS 13 (Ventura) | x86_64 | AppleClang 14 |
macOS 13 (Ventura) | arm64 | AppleClang 14 |
macOS 14 (Sonoma) | x86_64 | AppleClang 14 |
macOS 14 (Sonoma) | arm64 | AppleClang 14 |
macOS 14 (Sonoma) | x86_64 | AppleClang 15 |
macOS 14 (Sonoma) | arm64 | AppleClang 15 |
Warning: The fixed-point data-types are not working as defined on MSVC 2017 and later in Release x64 mode.
This release has not been tested or is known not to work as expected on the following formerly supported platforms:
- GNU C++ compiler versions prior to 9.3.0 (all platforms)
- FreeBSD 9.0 or later (x86, x86_64) with GNU C++ compiler
- HP-UX 11.00 or later with GNU C++ or HP C++ compiler
- Sun/Oracle Solaris, with GNU C++ or Sun/Solaris Studio compiler
- macOS prior to 11.6 (Big Sur) and/or on the x86, PowerPC architectures
- Microsoft Visual C++ versions prior to 2017 (15.0)
- Cygwin 1.7 or later (x86, x86_64) with GNU C++ compiler
- Msys/MinGW32 GNU C++ compiler
- (In)compatibility note
While it is possible to build SystemC as a shared library (both on ELF-based systems and well as a DLL on Windows), there is no explicitly defined binary interface across different
- SystemC implementations (e.g. from multiple vendors)
- SystemC library versions
- Compilers or compiler versions
- Operating systems or OS versions
Some differences might be caught at link time, while other incompatibilities could just silently lead to undefined behavior during simulation. Please carefully ensure a consistent build configuration, when integrating binary SystemC models built from separate sources.
This version of SystemC contains the Reference Implementation simulator for the IEEE Std. 1666-2023 SystemC standard. Please consult the IEEE Std. 1666-2023 SystemC Language Reference Manual for details about the current SystemC standard.
Compared to the 2.3.4 release, this release has the following new items:
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New features and API changes implemented to reflect the IEEE Std. 1666-2023 revision, see section 3.
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Bug fixes and enhancements, see section 4.
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Deprecated features, see section 5.
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Experimental features (some disabled by default), see section 7. Testing and feedback welcome via the Accellera SystemC forums at http://forums.accellera.org/forum/9-systemc/.
Here is an overview of the new features available in 3.0.0.
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New class
sc_core::sc_stage_callback_if
provides an interface to enable user-defined callbacks during elaboration or simulation stages that are otherwise not available to the application. -
New functions to suspend and unsuspend the simulation kernel.
-
The constructor macro
SC_CTOR
now supports additional constructor parameters. -
Class
sc_core::sc_event
introduces the member function triggered to determine whether an event has recently been triggered. -
The enumeration type
sc_core::sc_time_unit
now supports attosecond (sc_core::SC_AS
), zeptosecond (sc_core::SC_ZS
), and yoctosecond (sc_core::SC_YS
). -
Class
sc_core::sc_time
supports a constructor passing the time as string argument. -
New class
sc_core::sc_hierarchy_scope
provides an interface to allow an application to place objects of typesc_core::sc_object
in an object hierarchy outside the current hierarchical scope. -
New functions are defined to register and un-register hierarchical names.
-
New static object
sc_core::sc_unbound
can be used in an application to make an unbound (open) connection to a port. In addition, the functionsc_core::sc_tie::value(const &T)
can be used to tie a port to a specified value of typeT
. -
New definition supports tracing of types
sc_core::sc_event
andsc_core::sc_time
usingsc_core::sc_trace
. -
New functions
sc_core::sc_vector::emplace_back
andsc_core::sc_vector::emplace_back_with_name
support making incremental additions tosc_core::sc_vector
. -
Added support for C++20, lambda functions for sc_spawn and sc_bind
Following is the list of bug fixes and enhancements for the 3.0.0 release:
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Execution speed improvements for the SystemC data-types
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Fixed MSVC warnings in examples
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Fixed set_stack_size issue on Windows
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Fixed sc_vector iterator comparisons in C++20
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Fixed Automake flow for data-types
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Fixed various warnings and cleanup in tests
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Improved windows support (recent Visual Studio files, tests cleanup)
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Removed obsolete macros
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Droped unused Boost package
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Droped legacy coroutine stack allocation for QuickThreads
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Various clean-up thanks to the support of c++17 as new baseline for SystemC
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Fixed various invalid UTF-8 charcters in comments
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Fixed big integers issue in constructor
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Improved CMake support
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Merged SystemC regression tests in distribution
Here is an overview of deprecated features:
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Macro
SC_HAS_PROCESS
is not required anymore and has been deprecated -
constructor:
sc_time(double, bool)
has been deprecated -
constructor:
sc_time(uint64, bool)
has been deprecated -
function:
sc_set_default_time_unit
has been deprecated -
function:
sc_get_default_time_unit
has been deprecated
IEEE Std. 1666-2023 mandates C++17 as the baseline for SystemC implementations.
std::string_view
is used in new APIs. However, const char *
are still used
in several locations and will be progressively cleaned-up in the upcoming
releases.
Some of these features are not enabled in the default library configuration and need to be explicitly activated during at library build time. See INSTALL.md file.
-
This implementation currently truncates "small"
sc_time
objects toSC_ZERO_TIME
, while "too big” objects wrap-aroundsc_max_time()
and lead to a value modulo the maximum time. In both cases, no warning is generated, even though such a warning is mandated by IEEE Std. 1666-2023. -
Some typos have not been fixed yet in the version of the IEEE Std. 1666-2023 document available online, but have been implemented in this release:
- the following stage callbacks are implemented
void sc_register_stage_callback( sc_stage_callback_if&, int ); void sc_unregister_stage_callback( sc_stage_callback_if&, int );
static const sc_event & none()
is implementedIEEE_1666_SYSTEMC
is set to202301L
- the following stage callbacks are implemented
-
The SystemC non regression test suite still available does not take into account all the alignments done in the reference implementation to align to IEEE Std. 1666-2023. Therefore, the non regression tests might not compile or not behave as expected, this will be fixed in an upcoming delivery.
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The sign-extension of mixed-signedness logic expressions (&,|) involving one
sc_bigint<>
operand and C++ builtin integral types (int, short, etc.) is inconsistent between 32-bit and 64-bit platforms in some cases. Convert both operands tosc_bigint<>
first. -
The definition of
sc_dt::(u)int64
differs fromstd::(u)int64_t
types on some platforms. This may lead to problems with function overloads and/or format-string placeholders. As a workaround, convert these values explicitly to the correct type before passing them to functions expecting one of these types. Forsc_time
, use the new nested typesc_time::value_type
to hold values of the underlying representation. -
Bit/logic-vector reductions (or_reduce, and_reduce, etc.) return an
sc_logic_value_t
enum value, instead of abool
orsc_logic
(as required as of IEEE Std. 1666-2011). Using the return value of these functions in a boolean context, e.g.if ( lv.or_reduce() ) { /* ... */ }
might lead to wrong results in case of
'X'
or'Z'
bits in the vector. Avoid this by converting the result to ansc_logic
first and perform a safe conversion to bool:if ( sc_logic( lv.or_reduce() ).to_bool() ) { /* ... */ }
-
The current implementation of bit-wise operations on
sc_bv
and other bit types implicitly uses the left-hand argument as the size of the result rather than the size of the larger operand, as required by the IEEE Std. 1666 standard. -
The fixed-point implementation is not working correctly on MSVC 2017 or later, when built with optimization enabled (Release mode, 64-bit). On this compiler/platform, optimization needs to be disabled when using the fixed-point library (for all SystemC versions before and including 2.3.2).
-
Some paths in this release are longer than the historical 99 character limit of tar archives, and several Windows archivers (e.g. WinZip) have been reported to trip over this. The open source archiver 7-zip (http://7-zip.org) is known to work.
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Some warnings related to overloaded virtual functions are reported when using gcc 13 or clang17. They will be fixed in an upcoming version of the library.
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in SystemC 3.0.0 release, the build fails on (Apple)Clang compilers due to a warning eventually treated as error in sc_vcd_trace.cpp. The workaround is available on the main branch of accellera-official repository.
SystemC contains a fixed-point data-types package.
Compile-time macro SC_INCLUDE_FX
must be defined in order to build
applications that use fixed point types. You can specify a compiler
flag, e.g., g++ -DSC_INCLUDE_FX
or use a define statement before
you include systemc.h
, e.g.:
#define SC_INCLUDE_FX
#include "systemc.h"