The purpose of a mix-in is to add some functionality in to the class hierarchy at one of its nodes. The functionality of the mixed-in class is shared by the class and its subhierarchy and the same mixed-in class can be added at distinct nodes to ensure that only the desired class sub-hierarchies have the specific functionality. The aim is avoid distorting the class hierarchy by having the mixed-in functionality appear as a common ancestor of classes which otherwise have nothing to do with each other.
It is possible for more than one class to be mixed-in at any point and for the mixed-in class to appear not only at different points within the same class hierarchy, but also in unrelated hierarchies.
In SystemVerilog, a mix-in can be declared by type parameterising a class with the class it extends from:
class Component_Reporter #(type P = Reporter) extends P;
...
endclass
Here, the functionality provided by the parameter class, P, is accessible to the Component class and its class sub-hierarchy.