actsim: The ACT simulator

actsim is a mixed-signal simulator capable of simulating ACT files. actsim can simulate designs containing a combination of CHP, HSE, PRS, and analog circuits in a unified framework. For analog simulation, we use the Xyce simulator. Some of the extensions we needed in Xyce for mixed-signal simulation have been accepted by the Xyce team and are now part of the latest Xyce release.

Build and Installation

This program is for use with the ACT toolkit.

• Please install the ACT toolkit first; installation instructions are here.
• Also install the ACT standard library.
• Build this program using the standard ACT tool install instructions here.

To build, run ./configure and then ./build.sh and make install.

Building with Xyce

There are a number of things to keep in mind when building actsim with Xyce.

Building Xyce:

• For Xyce 7.6 or newer
  • Build Xyce itself, using cmake and $ACT_HOME as the install directory
  • to compile the required interface run make xycecinterface in your cmake build directory
  • install the interface required by actsim with make install to $ACT_HOME
• For Xyce 7.5 and older
  • Build and install Xyce itself, using cmake and $ACT_HOME as the install directory
  • To build and install the Xyce C interface library (in the xyce-bits directory), use the following commands:
    • Go to the xyce-bits/ directory
    • Build an object file using g++ -std=c++17 -I. -I$ACT_HOME/include -c N_CIR_XyceCInterface.C
    • Create the library using ar ruv libxycecinterface.a N_CIR_XyceCInterface.o
    • If you need to, use ranlib libxycecinterface.a
    • Copy libxycecinterface.a to $ACT_HOME/lib
    • Copy N_CIR_XyceCInterface.h to $ACT_HOME/include
• Preserve your cmake build directory for the next step. (We need one file from it as described below.)

Note: the xyce-bits/ directory is only needed if you are using a version of Xyce prior to 7.6. The changes have been incorporated by the Xyce team into their core distribution.

Building actsim:

• When you run ./configure, it should detect that the Xyce C interface library exists.
• To use static linking for actsim, we need to extract the correct link-time options used by your Xyce build. To do so:
  • Run ./grab_xyce.sh <path> where <path> is the path to the cmake build directory for your Xyce build
  • Alternatively, you can copy the file src/CMakeFiles/Xyce.dir/link.txt from your cmake build directory for Xyce, place it it any directory, and run grab_xyce.sh with the path set to the directory containing link.txt
• After this, you can build actsim.

Running the simulator

To start a simulation, use actsim <file.act> <top-level-process>. More information on running a simulation is available.