Develop Software Earlier Delivering an SoC is no longer just about Silicon

Lauro Rizzatti, Moderator Dr Lauro Rizzatti, Moderator Dr. Lauro Rizzatti is a verification consultant and industry expert on hardware emulation. Previously, Dr. Rizzatti held positions in management, product marketing, technical marketing, and engineering. He holds a doctorate in Electronic Engineering from the Universita` degli Studi di Trieste in Italy.

Jason Andrews, ARM Jason is Principal Solutions Architect in the software tools group at ARM. He works with ARM partners in the areas of compilers, debuggers and models for virtual prototyping. While at ARM, Carbon Design Systems and Cadence, he has been involved in numerous pre-silicon software development projects utilizing fast models, cycle accurate models, emulation and FPGAs.

Jason’s Position Six common techniques for pre-silicon software development: FPGA prototyping; Emulation; Cycle Accurate/RTL simulation; Fast instruction set simulation; Fast models + emulation hybrid; Operating system simulation (instruction set abstracted away) Most projects adopt 2 or 3 –– Too difficult to learn, setup, maintain all. Along with functional software on pre-silicon hardware, two areas to do earlier: Performance analysis Continuous integration Performance analysis starts during IP selection with benchmarking, system architecture Relevant throughout software development Compilers are important, though often left out of engine-focused talks Continuous integration ensures embedded software meets functional, performance expectations through models Code coverage on fast, functional models maintains high quality in parallel with FPGA prototypes or emulation systems

Mike Dini, The Dini Group Mike Dini is President of DINI Group Mike Dini, The Dini Group Mike Dini is President of DINI Group. He has been a specialist in the design and application of FPGAs for the last 30 years.

Mike’s Position FPGAs can be used to prototype complete systems long before real silicon is available. The FPGA-based prototypes are much closer to the final system in speed and functionality making this approach a good fit for early software development.  It is, unfortunately, hard.

Russell Klein, Mentor Graphics Russell is a Technical Director in Mentor Graphics' Emulation Division. He holds a number of patents for EDA tools in the area of SoC design and verification. Klein has more than 20 years of experience developing design and debug solutions which span the boundary between hardware and software.

Russ’ Position Software can be developed on emulation. Emulation represents the earliest cycle accurate representation of the design capable of running software. Advances in debug tools make it practical to start software development on emulation, sooner than ever before.