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Hello, I have a system-under-test that can connect to one or more producers, as well as one or more consumers. I am currently writing a testbench for this system. I have a sequence of N test scenarios I would like to submit my SUT to, so I'd like phase through each in my testbench. I could instantiate N separate testbenches, but I am looking for a more elegant solution that only requires me to instantiate one testbench, and phase through the tests within it. I am looking for suggestions on how to do this. The primary concerns for me are that it should not be too difficult to understand the testing mechanism, and it should be as easy as possible to add new tests, or modify existing ones. To give this some substance, this is the solution I have design so far: class Producer : public sc_module { public: sc_event first_test_e; sc_event second_test_e; sc_mutex busy_lock; // ... void first_test() { wait(first_test_e); busy_lock.lock(); // ... busy_lock.unlock(); } void second_test() { wait(second_test_e); busy_lock.lock(); // ... busy_lock.unlock(); } }; class Consumer : public sc_module { public: sc_event first_test_e; sc_event second_test_e; sc_mutex busy_lock; // ... void first_test() { wait(first_test_e); busy_lock.lock(); // ... busy_lock.unlock(); } void second_test() { wait(second_test_e); busy_lock.lock(); // ... busy_lock.unlock(); } }; class tb_top : public sc_module { public: Producer prod_i; Consumer cons_i; // ... void top_test() { // First test starts... prod_i.first_test_e.notify(SC_ZERO_TIME); cons_i.first_test_e.notify(SC_ZERO_TIME); wait(SC_ZERO_TIME); wait(SC_ZERO_TIME); prod_i.busy_lock.lock(); cons_i.busy_lock.lock(); // First test done. prod_i.busy_lock.unlock(); cons_i.busy_lock.unlock(); // Go on to second test... // ... } }; Here, I use events owned by the producers/consumers to begin tests. I use locks to communicate to the top test thread when all producers/consumers are done. I created a rudimentary prototype for this with success. Do you have any feedback?

In my testbench I have two background sequences (call them S1 and S2) perform register access and a test that has multiple threads ( call them T1 to T7) also performing register access on the same shared bus. T1 through T7 need to lock the sequencer in order to perform multi-cycle transactions on the CPU bus. The scenario is S1 issues a write, resulting in arb_sequence_q.size == 1 and arb_sequence_q[0].request == SEQ_TYPE_REQ in the same simulation tick, T1 through T7 issue lock requests. arb_sequence_q.size() == 8 and arb_sequence_q[0] is still the S1 request S2 issues a read, resulting in arb_sequence_q.size() == 9, arb_sequence_q[8].request == SEQ_TYPE_REQ The CPU driver calls get() and the request at the head of arb_sequence_q (the write from S1) gets popped, resulting in arb_sequence_q.size() == 8 and arb_sequence_q[0:6].request = SEQ_TYPE_LOCK and arb_sequence_q[7].request == SEQ_TYPE_REQ (this is the request from S2). finish_item is called for the S1 request, resulting in grant_queued_locks getting called, pushing all LOCK requests onto the lock_list and leaving only S2 on the arb_sequence_q. arb_sequence_q.size() == 1, arb_sequence_q[0].request = SEQ_TYPE_REQ (this is the S2 request) lock_list.size() == 7 arb_completed.num() == 0 T1 calls write, enqueuing a SEQ_TYPE_REQ on the arb_sequence_q. The arb_sequence_q.size() == 2, arb_sequence_q[0] is S2's request and arb_sequence_q[1] is T1's request. [edit] Here's where the problem hits. Because the lock_list size() > 1, when the consumer (driver) calls get(), the sequencer will cycle through all its requests in its arb_sequence_q until it finds one that is ~is_blocked(). Unfortunately, that function cycles through all sequences in the lock_list regardless of whether the first item in the lock list corresponds to the request being processed. So since we have 7 locks in there, one for each thread, when the driver tries to get a new sequence, T1 will always be blocked by T2:T7. Similarly any request from T1:T7 will get locked out by the others. We've now deadlocked. I believe there is an issue here with the is_blocked() function which should have some form of priority encoding.