Quantitative Analysis of Transaction Level Models for the AMBA Bus

The increasing complexity of embedded systems pushes system designers to higher levels of abstraction. Transaction level modeling (TLM) has been proposed to model communication in systems in an abstract manner Although being widely accepted, TLMs have not been analyzed for their loss in accuracy. This paper will analyze and quantify the speed-accuracy tradeoff of TLM using a case study on AMBA, an industry bus standard. It shows the results of modeling the advanced high-performance bus (AHB) of AMBA using a set of models at different abstraction levels. The analysis of the simulation speed shows improvements of two orders of magnitude for each TLM abstraction, while the timing in the model remains accurate for many applications. As a result, the paper will classify the different models towards their applicability in typical modeling situations, allowing the system designer to achieve fast and accurate simulation of communication