COMPENTITY - Compound Entity

Synopsis

The COMPENTITY declaration enables the creation of higher level architecture components. This is used to group together entities and/or other higher level entities (the COMPENTITY's descendants) along with their interconnections into one entity, allowing the operation of the lower level components to be abstracted out.

When a project is first opened, a compound entity is displayed on screen by its own icon. Left clicking on this icon changes the display to show the next level of detail (i.e. a descendant may itself be a compound entity.

Syntax

COMPENTITY [OBJECT] entity_type_name (
DESCENDANTS ( descendant, ... )
DESCRIPTION ("description")
[PARAMS ( reference_parameter, ... )]
[PORTS ( port, ... )]
)

OBJECT - Optional - Although a compound entity may exist simply as an aggregation of its descendants, and thus not have any parameters or ports of it own, it can be given its own separate existence by the inclusion of the word OBJECT before its entity_type_name.

descendants - The descendant components describe which entities and their interconnections are to be used to compose the higher level. Therefore the descendant_component can be of two types, a child entity or a link
entity_type_name str - The name of the type of higher level entity to be created. This is used to create instances of the component in the architecture, and to identify the correct simulation code and icon.
description str - A description of an aspect of the higher level entity.
reference_parameter - Optional - This section of the higher level entity definition describes the parameters that are associated with the compound entity itself.
port - Optional This section of the entity definition describes the ports of the compound entity itself.
If there are any unconnected ports on the lower level entities these are inherited by the higher level entity. These two ports then behave as one, so if the higher level port is then linked to a different component, the lower level port is automatically connected too. This inheritance can be performed at multiple levels.

Example

COMPENTITY Computer (

DESCENDANTS (

CHILD ( Mem, main_mem )
CHILD ( CPU, processor )
CLINK ( CPU.processor[to_mem]->Mem.main_mem[from_proc], 3)

)
DESCRIPTION ( "A basic computer" )
PARAMS (

RARRAY ( Memory, cache_contents )
RINT ( access_time, 2 )
RENUM ( Associativity, cache_assoc, 0 )

)
PORTS (

PORT ( to_cpu, LinkData, SOURCE )
PORT ( from_cpu, LinkData, DESTINATION )
PORT ( to_main_mem, LinkData, SOURCE )
PORT ( from_main_mem, LinkData, DESTINATION )

)

CHILD - Compound Entity Component

Synopsis

The CHILD construct provides a mechanism for defining lower level entities in a COMPENTITY definition. Ports that are left unconnected on lower level entities are inherited by the higher level entity. These two ports then behave as one, so if the top level port is then linked to another port then the lower level port is automatically linked too. This inheritance can be performed at multiple levels resulting in three or four or more ports all behaving as one.

Syntax

CHILD ( entity_type_name, instance_name )

entity_type_