Python API for Kactus2 IP-XACT tool

Abstract

<p>System-on-chip design is highly reliant on efficient tooling and commonly agreed standards. IP-XACT is the de-facto industry standard for exchanging design data, yet tool flows fail to fully leverage the information within. We present a Python application programming interface for Kactus2, an open-source IP-XACT design tool to improve the utilization of the standard in tool flows. The Python programming language is well understood, fast to develop and easy to interface with which motivated the language choice. We demonstrate the API applicability in a use case as a part of a recently taped-out System-on-Chip ASIC implementation.</p>