Modeling I2C Communication Between SoCs with SystemC-AMS

In this paper, we show how to mode the I²C bus communications between the nodes of an embedded system. For this purpose, we use the SystemC-AMS model of an I²C bus controller IP based on the PFC8584. Then we show how this IP can be included into two kinds of embedded systems nodes: on the one hand a 8051 micro-controller node, on the other hand a MIPS based SOC node. Finally the simulation results show the successful operation of the multi-master I²C bus communications between these two nodes in SystemC-AMS. Moreover the SystemC-AMS simulation introduces a small 10% overhead over the digital SystemC simulation for the two nodes multi-master I²C communication.