DVHetero: A Framework for Designing and Validating Heterogeneous SoC with RISC-V Processor and CGRA

CGRA, as a coprocessor in SoCs, has been widely studied. However, there is limited research on how to efficiently debug and verify SoCs composed of CGRAs and processors during the design process. To address this gap, we introduce DVHetero. DVHetero incorporates a simulation and validation framework, SoCDiff, which enables comprehensive SoC simulation, debugging, and rapid error localization. Using this verification framework, we successfully implemented and validated the entire SoC. The SoC includes a Chisel-based CGRA generator and provides a pipelined CGRA architecture template. The CGRA is tightly integrated with the RISC-V processor, allowing for efficient DMA-based data transfer and MMIO support within the SoC. The pipelined CGRA architecture generated by DVHetero shows a 1.27× improvement in area efficiency and a 10.54× increase in mapping speed compared to the state-of-the-art CGRA framework, HierCGRA. Additionally, compared to state-of-the-art CGRA-SoC systems FDRA, DVHetero demonstrates a 1.67× increase in execution speed and a 4.34× improvement in area efficiency.