System Models and Virtual Prototype

A system model or a virtual prototype is the name used for a system level simulator. A system level simulator is a tool that can simulate the behavior of a system architecture consisting of processor cores and peripheral devices.

A virtual prototype is generally a system simulator that extends beyond the electronics of the system and tries to even give the look and feel of the real device.

Purpose of a System Model

A system simulator can be used instead of the real target board by embedded software developers during the software development process.

Simulators generally offer features that are not available on real target hardware like the capability to examine the state of the system without a logic analyzer, introduce simulated faults and simulate randomly deviant behavior. As a result system models can be used for testing embedded software in situations that are difficult to create on real target hardware in the lab.

A simulator can be used as a standard against which the behavior of the target board can be compared. Therefore system simulators can be used during the board verification stage.

Benefits of Using a System Simulator

A system simulator offers a cost effective platform for developing software. By enabling the development of software without having the target hardware, the number of reference boards that have to be created for new system designs can be reduced.

During early system development, when the hardware is either not available or is unreliable, Simulators provide a reliable platform for software development.

By allowing hardware and software development to go in parallel, system simulators can reduce the time to market.

SANKHYA Platform Design Kit (XDK) for Simulator Development

Sankhya has developed a technology that enables the creation of simulators in a model driven fashion. When using the SANKHYA Platform Design Kit (XDK) system architectures can be modeled using SANKHYA System Description Language (SSDL).

The XDK Simulator has the capability to load SSDL models at run time and create a simulation platform consisting of one or more CPUs and peripheral devices.

The XDK Simulator supports a high speed communication backplane that can be used to integrate C or C++ models of devices with the processors simulated using the CDK Simulator. This enables the modeling and simulation of complete systems.

Benefits of Using XDK Simulator

A System Simulator built using the XDK Simulator shares all of the benefits of a CPU Simulator built using the CPU Design Kit.

In addition, the use of a standard communication backplane documented using CORBA® IDL allows easy extension of the simulator to include peripheral devices, transducers and physical devices like dials and displays.

The use of an open-standard for the communication back plane ensures that different device models from different vendors can be combined into a system model.

Device models can be reused with zero effort across different system models (or virtual prototypes).

By allowing different components to be simulated on different servers, system simulators built using XDK Simulator can achieve high simulation speeds of several thousand distributed transactions per-second, several million local transactions and processor speeds of over a million instructions per second.

Services Offered

SANKHYA Consulting offers professional services for:

• Creating SSDL models for System Architectures
• Developing C/C++ Device Models

Next Steps

If you would like to learn more or request a proposal, use this form -- Request a Proposal .