Mixed-Abstraction Virtual System Prototypes Fill SoC Design Gaps

In order to insure a timely product introduction, SoC design teams must be able to validate their designs as early as possible in the development cycle. Companies must also keep development costs to a minimum. This paper demonstrates how the integration of SOC-VSP with ARM's RealView SoC Designer significantly shortens the design cycle and provides a methodology for first pass hardware and software success. Hardware/software integration is a source of many errors in the development process. The collaboration between ARM and Carbon Design System provides a development environment that facilitates the validation of the firmware on a hardware accurate model of the system. This pre-silicon firmware validation ensures that the firmware will work on the real silicon the first time, avoiding very costly chip re-spins, post-silicon software bugs, and improving the probability that the company will meet its time-to-market target.