ARMs AMBA 3 Interface Family

Enabling Advanced SoC Design

Peter.Aldworth@arm.com
October 21, 2004

AMBA Protocol Family

ASPA Members (public)

Agere, Agilent, Atmel, Cadence, Conexant, CoWare,
Epson, Ericsson, Faraday, Fujitsu, HP, Infineon, LSI,
Mentor Graphics, Matsushita, Micronas, Motorola,
NEC, OKI, Philips, Qualcomm, Samsung, ST,
Synopsys, Toshiba, Verisity

Over 2 billion
core-based designs
using AMBA interfaces
Protocol specs are free to download and use
Constrained configuration
Reduced learning curve
Easier to verify and integrate
AMBA 3 ATB AMBA 3 AXI
AMBA 3 is latest generation:
Created in industry collaboration
AMBA 3 APB
AMBA 3 AHB-Lite
ARM

AMBA 2 APB
AMBA APB
1995

AMBA 2 AHB

AMBA ASB
2005
2

AMBA 3 Interface Protocols

AMBA 3 AHB-Lite
Removes redundant features
Bridges to full AMBA 2 AHB
AMBA 3 APB
AMBA 2 Backward compatible
Addition of wait and error resp

AMBA 3 AXI
Burst based
Multiple outstanding
transactions
Out of order data
Simultaneous reads and writes
Register Slice support
Asynchronous interfacing
Bridges to other protocols

AMBA 3 ATB
Advanced Trace Bus
Supports systems debug

Write
Address

Read
Address

Write
Data

Write
Response

Read
Data

Other Interfaces
XVC

XVC

XVC

XVC
Manager

Multiple languages and tools

in use for verification
Verisity e, Vera, SystemC,
SystemVerilog, Verilog,
VHDL, C/C++
Collaboration with EDA
partners to create advanced
verification IP
XVC IP verification scenario
files need to be portable
across different vendor tool
chains

There is also a need for higher

level interfaces for Transaction
Level Modeling (TLM) to
enable high speed system
modeling for architectural
evaluation
ARM is working with the OSCI
organization to create
standard interfaces for System
C modeling:
http://www.systemc.org/web/site
docs/who_we_are.html

ARM will publish model APIs

and libraries for AMBA
component modeling

System Interconnect Generation

Increased productivity through
automation
Scalable to any number of ports
Configurable to allow any memory
map and port width
Supports TrustZone security
Automatically generates RTL and
validation world
Royalty free license

PL300 follows the SPIRIT approach

PL300 PrimeCell
AMBA 3 Configurable Interconnect

XML/XSL data book format

Seamless integration into EDA tools
Tools provide GUI that drives PL300
Configured AXI Interconnect
automatically created
Leads to reduced integration time

Summary
AMBA is the de facto standard on-chip interface
Continuing roadmap
Broad industry support and collaboration
AMBA 3 provides four interface protocols
AMBA 3 AXI, AHB-Lite, APB and ATB interfaces
Other standards are needed to promote reuse
Verification stimulus (VMM)
Transaction Level Model (TLM) interfaces
IP packaging standards (SPIRIT)
ARM welcomes and encourages EDA partner support for AMBA