Introduction

This document provides an overview of how to write models in TEMU. Device models in TEMU are plugins, which can be written in C or C++ (using the C API).

To write a model, it is important to understand the TEMU object system. The object system provides a way to register a classes, properties and interfaces; and a way to instantiate classes to objects.

For users of the System-C, SMP2 or other simulation modelling frameworks, you will find that there are likely several similarities in the TEMU object system to these standards and framework. However, the emulator is intended to work with any external modelling standard and with any language, and the emulator therefor provides its own C level API. It is easy to integrate external modelling standards and frameworks using the external class feature in TEMU.

The TEMU object system is driven by the use of interfaces and interface references (see important interfaces for more info).

A very important interface for device models is the MemAccessIface. This Interface is the interface between the emulator core and the memory system. The interface provides a standardized way to implement read, write and fetch handlers for different memory mapped devices.

The most important interfaces are listed in Important Interfaces.

Coding Conventions

TEMU provides a set of headers that define the API. These headers are located in the include/temu-c/ directory that can be found in the installation directory (normally /opt/temu/3.0.0/). The headers provide a C-API for maximum compatibility (headers are C++ compatible). The headers follow a number of coding conventions.

  • The namespace for TEMU is temu, and public functions, types and macros are prefixed with temu_ or TEMU_.

  • Enum members are prefixed with teXYZ_ where XYZ is a per enum type abbreviation.

  • Interface types (structs containing function pointers) are suffixed with Iface. This suffix is assumed by some macros, so custom interfaces should follow the same suffix rule.

  • Interface reference types are suffixed with IfaceRef. This is assumed by some macros. There is a macro TEMU_IFACE_REFERENCE_TYPE that lets you define such reference types.

While the headers have a specific coding style, the only rule that the user have to consider is that custom interfaces must be suffixed with Iface and interface reference types with IfaceRef, although the latter is automatic if the macro is used.