Happy New Year!

With the new year we are kicking off some exciting new opportunities for the TLMCentral community.

TLMCentral added an open source component to its model portal capabilities. With this new feature, model developers can upload their open source SystemC TLM-2.0-based models, adding to the 800+ list of commercially available models now on the site.

To kick off this new addition to the portal, TLMCentral is hosting a model contest. This contest offers multiple opportunities to win fame in the SystemC modeling community and an iPad2:

1. Submit your model(s). An iPad2 winner will be drawn for the model developers contributing the first 50 models (any type of SystemC TLM-2.0 model). You get one entry per model you upload!Yes, it’s that simple!
2. If you’re up for a bigger challenge, you can enter to win best model in the sensor device model competition. 
3. Upload the most models from a single participant by the end of March and win an iPad2! 
4. Get the highest vote out of any model loaded on TLMCentral by the end of April and win an iPad2! 
5. If your model has the most downloads by the end of May, win an iPad2! 

First let’s go over the general rules:

1. Submissions should be written in SystemC TLM-2.0. 
2. Post submissions on TLMCentral in source code form with accompanying documentation. 
3. All submissions for the sensor device model challenge need to be uploaded to TLMCentral by February 17, 2012. 
4. To win the sensor device model competition your model needs to adhere to the requirements as listed in this blog below, be submitted before the deadline (Feb. 17th) and get the highest vote from TLMCentral users. 
5. In case of equal score for best model for challenges 2 or 4 above, the model with the most votes will win. And if the quantity of votes happens to be the same as well, the winner will be randomly drawn from the models with equal score and amount of votes. 

You need to be a registered TLMCentral user to upload, download or rate a model.

The Sensor Device Modeling Competition:

As sensor devices - for instance accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers, proximity sensors - are being added to today’s tablets and smartphones to enable context awareness (http://www.isuppli.com/Abstract/P13578_20110912154751.pdf), so is it becoming important to have models available for these sensor devices.

Typically these sensor devices are discrete devices supporting I2C or SPI interfaces. There are many suppliers and specifications that can be found on the Internet.

Your challenge in this competition is to model any one of these devices.

Component registers can be made accessible via a standard TLM-2.0 b_transport interface. A SystemC testbench should be provided to demonstrate all of the functionality of the model as well as containing directed tests for each individual register (or bitfield). Sensor input could be specified by reading time-stamped data from a file. File name should include the type of sensor you are modeling (e.g., gyroscope).

Some Tips :

To download the SystemC TLM-2.0 library go to http://www.accellera.org/downloads/standards/systemc/tlm.

I recommend using the SCML APIs and coding methodology as this eases modeling. To download the SCML API library, go to http://www.tlmcentral.com/forum/Room/Topic/?topicId=17. Example models coded using the SCML API library can also be found on TLMCentral, e.g.http://www.tlmcentral.com/models/16550-uart1/.

You are allowed to provide updates of your model for the duration of the competition. That way you can adjust your model based on feedback from the TLMCentral community to try to increase your model’s score. Be sure to enable comments and ratings so that TLMCentral users can vote for your model. This can be done by setting “DISABLE COMMENTS AND RATINGS” to “No”.

For challenges 2, 4 and 5, the earlier you post your model, the better chance it has of winning because it will have more time to garner votes and downloads.

Voting for Models:

Votes will be cast using the 5 star rating system for open source models on TLMCentral. Please help rate these models to provide important feedback about their quality and usefulness. All votes for the sensor modeling challenge need to be casted by February 24. We will announce the first winners for 50th upload and the sensor model challenges on February 28.

Sponsoring a model contest:

Looking for models to fit certain application specifications? Can’t find anything that already exists? Sponsor a model challenge on TLMCentral similar to the sensor device model challenge going on now. Contact us at info@tlmcentral.com for more information.

Good luck!