Mentor Graphics

During the last decade, embedded software's nature in devices has changed radically. As devices have taken on increasingly more functionality, the complexity of higher level software has grown accordingly. Today's devices employ high-performance hardware such as accelerators and multi-core architectures, which in turn, enable more sophisticated software applications to cater to growing customer demands and using hardware drivers that come out-of-the-box. This quantum leap in software complexity, combined with ever tightening development schedules, requires more advanced software development tools and a new approach to embedded software development. In this paper, the differences between three different types simulators are examined. All three simulation approaches are viable and the decision to choose one over the other depends not only on the requirements burdened upon the software, but also on the needs embedded device manufacturers are facing today.