Interfacing VPI Applications to Verilog Simulators

Summary

This chapter has shown the major parts of PLI applications. For PLI applications which are developed using the VPI library, the main parts of an application are: the name of a system task or system function, a compiletf routine, a calltf routine, a sizetf routine, and simulation callback routines. A system function called $pow, which calculates x^y and returns a 32-bit result, was used in this chapter to illustrate the major parts of a PLI application. The VPI interface mechanism is used to interface a PLI application to a Verilog simulator. The interface mechanism involves registering a PLI application using an application-defined register function, and notifying the simulator about the register function by editing a vlog_startup_routines array provided by the simulator. The next four chapters present how to use each of the routines in the VPI library.