data type : sc_int v/s int

[mohitnegi]

Hello ,

 

I have a confusion related to systemc data types particularly 

what is the difference between sc_int and int(c++) ....the difference

i found out was that sc_int is 64bit and int is 2byte or 4 byte depends on compiler....

 

could anyone elaborate any difference in above and which is preferred ???

does it have any effect on scheduler  ??

[manikanta.mashetti]

Hie,

 

1.sc_int<w> , here 'w' can vary from 1 to 64 bits any number you can take,based on your requirement.default is 32 bits

 

2.int ,it is a c++ data type it takes by default 32 bits.

 

But simulation speed is fast when you use c++ data type compare to the systemC datatype..

 

so when you use 32 bits use C++ datatype(int) data type ...else use systemC datatype(sc_int)...

[apfitch]

Also sc_int has lots features, for instance the ability to select a range of bits; concatenation operators; bit select; various type conversions; and so on. See the 1666-2011 Language Reference Manual for details,

 

regards

Alan

[saraswathi.m]

Hi,

Even sizeof int and sc_int<w> is different.in 32 bit machine sizeof sc_int<w>  is around 20 bytes.

could anyone tell why sc_int<w> is required so much space ?

[dakupoto]

Hi,

Even sizeof int and sc_int<w> is different.in 32 bit machine sizeof sc_int<w>  is around 20 bytes.

could anyone tell why sc_int<w> is required so much space ?

Hello Sir,

sc_int is a signed, 64 bit integer stored in 2's complement form, with the N - 1 th

bit the sign bit.

[apfitch]

sc_int is a (template) class, hence takes more space

 

Alan

[David Black]

If you want to guarantee the # of bits, but want speed then you should include <cstdint> or stdint.h (which has become part of the C++11 standard, but has been available for many years). You only have access to multiples of 8-bits, but at least least it's fast. Of course to grab bit ranges you will need to do the standard software masking rather than the convenience of sc_int.

 

sc_int<W> should be used for situations where modeling the exact number of bits will make a difference in the results. For example, if the hardware implementation will have 13 bits and you do arithmetic (addition/subtraction), then sc_int<W> can catch overflow issues. Another example is synthesis of a register, where you need to control size of the hardware.

 

The difference in performance is dramatic. Consider the following code and timing results:

 

{
    using data_t = int32_t; //< replace this with sc_int<32>, sc_fixed<32,32>, float, etc...
    data_t result = 1;
    data_t A = 1103515245;
    data_t C = 12345;


    start_timer(); //< Calls a routine to get CPU time using C++11 constructs -- portable
    for (size_t loop=loop_count; loop!=0; --loop)
    {
      result = A * result + C;
    }
    cout << "result=" << result << endl; // Ensure compiler doesn't optimize loop out
    report_time(typeid(data_t).name); //< Calculates final time -- Be sure to filter with c++filt
  }

I saw results for SystemC 2.3.0-ASI --- Jan  6 2014 07:20:27 (on 2.7GHz Intel i7) with no optimization using clang++ compiler:

 

loop_count = 1e8

int                     took  0.343008s

sc_dt::sc_int<32>       took  2.01204s

double                  took  0.755805s

sc_dt::sc_fixed<32, 32> took 41.3482s

 

With -O3 optimization:

 

loop_count = 1e8

int                     took  0.125028s

sc_dt::sc_int<32>       took  0.199671s

double                  took  0.364543s

sc_dt::sc_fixed<32, 32> took 25.6714s

 

So be careful what you select AND what compiler options you use.

 

You can view the source code at https://github.com/dcblack/scdataperf