VArchC

ArchC-based Approximate Computing Framework

VArchC is a framework built to test, validate and evaluate Approximate Computing techniques.

ArchC is a powerful and modern open-source architecture description language designed at University of Campinas by the ArchC team in the Computer Systems Laboratory, Institute of Computing.

License

• ArchC tools are provided under the GNU GPL license. See Copying file for details on this license.

• ArchC utility library, i.e. all files stored in the src/aclib directory of the ArchC source tree, are provided under the GNU LGPL license. See the Copying Lib file for details on this license.

Dependencies

1. GNU autotools:

• m4
• autoconf
• automake
• libtool

2. Build tools:

• GCC
• GNU Make

3. GNU Bison

4. GNU Flex

Build and Install

1. Create a directory to store VArchC and access it

2. Build and install SystemC

wget http://www.accellera.org/images/downloads/standards/systemc/systemc-2.3.1.tgz
tar -xvf systemc-2.3.1.tgz
cd systemc-2.3.1
./configure --prefix=$(pwd)/../SystemC/
make
make install
cd ../

3. Build and install ArchC

git clone https://github.com/VArchC/ArchC.git ArchC-SRC
cd ArchC-SRC
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=$(pwd)/../ArchC --with-systemc=$(pwd)/../SystemC/
make
make install

4. Setup environment

source env.sh

We recommend to add this line to your ~/.bashrc to set the ArchC environment automatically.

echo "source env.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

5. ArchC installation is ready. You need a Processor Model to get started.

Processor Models

VArchC needs vanilla-ArchC to be slightly modified for compatibility. Currently the following models are available:

Model	Repository
MIPS32r2	https://github.com/VArchC/MIPS32r2

Get a model of your choice to get started.