CoWare, EVE link electronic system virtualization, emulation for ARM AXI-based systems

SAN JOSE, USA: CoWare, the leading supplier of Electronic System Virtualization software and services, and EVE, a leader in hardware/software co-verification, announced the first fully-integrated, high-performance solution combining virtualization and emulation to enable pre-silicon software development and hardware/software co-verification for multicore ARM AXI-based system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

CoWare Virtual Platform and EVE’s ZeBu (for zero bugs) emulation uses CoWare’s fast untimed emulation adapters and EVE’s Synthesizable AXI Transactors. This bridges the gap between the virtualized, transaction-level representation of the system for software development and the register transfer level (RTL) implementation of subsystem hardware in emulation.

The hybrid, off-the-shelf solution enables fast and efficient development of hardware-dependent software and hardware/software co-verification ahead of first silicon. By enabling transaction-based communication of RTL design blocks with an electronic system level (ESL) environment at 100,000s transactions/second, it accelerates the development cycle for SoC designs while increasing verification productivity.

“With the challenges of multicore system design, software developers must start their work earlier with efficient debugging and analysis capabilities adapted to multicore platforms,” remarks Patrick Sheridan, CoWare’s marketing director. “This joint solution enables exactly that by allowing CoWare Virtual Platforms to be created sooner by leveraging AXI application subsystem RTL in emulation, while still providing the debug visibility and simulation speed they need for the entire system.”

“When designing new application subsystems or integrating existing subsystems into SoC architectures, it is critical to perform hardware/software co-verification and pre-silicon software validation as early as possible,” adds Lauro Rizzatti, general manager of EVE USA.

“The off-the-shelf integration of our Synthesizable AXI Transactors for ZeBu with the CoWare Virtual Platform environment enables this work to start before the entire system RTL code is available, while reusing the software-driven tests developed with the virtual platform.”