CoWare Virtual Platform
Hardware/Software Integration and Testing...Without Hardware

Highlights:

• Faster edit-compile-debug cycles through more controllability, more observability and more determinism
• Near or faster than real time execution
• Non intrusive, multicore debugging and analysis environment
• Integration of existing commercial, open source or proprietary software development tools
• Integration of external applications such as realistic user interfaces and environment models
• Immediate availability worldwide--you can send a virtual hardware platform as an e-mail attachment

Companies designing and developing processor centric, software intensive products are increasingly demanding that their software development, integration and test teams shorten development cycles, increase product quality and reduce costs. To address these challenges, development teams need to address existing limitations of the software development process such as the availability of the physical hardware, the limited control and traceability offered by the physical hardware and the complexity and difficulty of accessing product test benches.

CoWare Virtual Platforms are fast, executable simulations of the device hardware and the environment it evolves in. They address the limitations of the software execution environment currently available to development teams.

Early availability: CoWare Virtual Platforms are available before the prototype board. They can represent the entire system, a subsystem or simply a set of relevant software development functionality (for example, a core with the set of peripherals needed for OS porting). This scalability enables software development milestones to be optimized.

Better accessibility: As a professionally integrated software package, CoWare Virtual Platforms can be made available worldwide, in a matter of minutes. They provide a simplified development environment executable on the developer's desktop.

Increased productivity: CoWare Virtual Platforms, unlike physical hardware, provide observability and controllability on the entire platform including core, interconnects and peripherals, resulting in faster edit-compile-debug cycle productivity. In addition, the system execution is deterministic and the debugging can be done in a non-intrusive way.

CoWare Virtual Platforms remove the dependency on hardware availability, enable the software developer to be more productive and simplify the development environment resulting in better products designed faster. In addition, CoWare Virtual Platforms can be distributed between development teams as well as customers resulting in your products getting better designed into your customer's product--sooner.

CoWare Virtual Platform Technologies and Tools

Simulation
CoWare simulation technology and expertise enables CoWare Virtual Platforms to execute at speeds near or faster than real-time. The simulation technology also offers advanced features improving the productivity of the software developer such as simulation restart where the developer does not have to reset his simulation environment and can automatically restart the simulation with its initial condition already set up (simulation parameters, connected tools). Simulation can be executed on a Linux or Windows host.

Virtual Platform Analyzer (VPA)
Unlike most software debuggers that only examine the state of the processor, virtual platforms can set breakpoints on every memory element and signal of the entire virtual platform, including the memory, bus, and peripheral blocks. CoWare Virtual Platform Analyzer provides a graphical user interface to perform these activities. It is a powerful scripting environment that enables the creation of test scenarios and sequences of control over the hardware and software that are simply not possible with physical hardware. The scripting can also be leveraged by the user to create user interfaces and a customized VPA tool.

Integration with software development tools
CoWare Virtual Platforms provide an infrastructure for the integration of commercial, open-source and proprietary software debuggers. Heterogeneous debugging tools are synchronized to provide a non-intrusive, deterministic and fully controllable development environment for the software and hardware debugging of multicore platforms. The integration of third-party debuggers reduces training with a consistent environment throughout the software development from virtual platform to physical hardware. For a list of pre-integrated software debuggers, contact your CoWare representative.

Integration with external applications
CoWare Virtual Platforms provide external application programming interfaces giving users the ability to integrate external applications such as user interfaces or third-party simulators. Virtual platforms can also be connected to its environment enabling a device to be connected to a network as it would be in real life. Developers can then interface with the virtual platform as if it were the real device.

Who Should Use CoWare Virtual Platforms?

Low-level software development teams
Development teams porting operating systems, developing board support packages or developing device drivers can validate their software even if the hardware is not available. Better visibility and observability of the hardware enables them to determine if a problem is hardware or software related. It provides unique tracing capabilities that accelerate the edit-compile-debug cycle. At this early stage, CoWare Virtual Platforms can also be tightly synchronized with the on-going hardware development ensuring that the development is made to the right specification.

Application development teams
With CoWare Virtual Platforms, application developers can ensure that their applications are functionally correct within the context of the system (rather than standalone). Applications can be optimized to meet the required performance and specification. CoWare Virtual Platforms provide a simplified development environment with no hardware set up and the ability to scale to large systems. CoWare Virtual Platforms provide the software developer with the tools and the integration with software debuggers that makes the edit-compile-debug cycle more productive.

Integration and test teams
System integration and testing needs to be started as early as possible to make sure that functionality, performance and quality requirements are met. With CoWare Virtual Platforms, integration and test teams can start testing without the hardware test bench being available. System-level problems can be identified faster and duplicated over and over again as a virtual platform is deterministic. CoWare Virtual Platforms provide a simplified system testing environment by providing a better alternative to complex hardware-based test benches, which are difficult and expensive to set up and can't be easily shared or made available from every engineer's desktop.

Documentation, training and support teams
The value of CoWare Virtual Platforms extends outside the traditional software and hardware engineering teams. Documentation teams can start developing product documentation using realistic models of the final product. Training teams can set up training sessions in a simplified environment that can even be demonstrated through the internet. Support teams do not require an entire company product line up and can quickly and efficiently report problems to the engineering team.

Marketing teams
CoWare Virtual Platforms are an efficient marketing tool. As an executable specification, they can be used to communicate and align on requirements with engineering. It also allows marketing teams to establish powerful go-to-market strategies by enabling a company's product to be designed into their customer's product sooner and more efficiently. A CoWare Virtual Platform can be used to capture and validate customer requirements more accurately and earlier. When used by the company's customers engineering team, it delivers improved design cycle, leading to faster time to revenue, increased customer satisfaction and reduced support costs.

How do I get a CoWare Virtual Platform?

CoWare delivers the tools and methodologies to create virtual platforms by using CoWare Platform Architect. CoWare Virtual Platforms use the same modeling technologies as the one used by hardware development modeling teams.   Creating a CoWare Virtual Platform does not require duplication of effort. Since the same model is used, it eliminates unintentional errors and revisions to the hardware platform and can be delivered to the software team as soon as they are made.

CoWare Virtual Platforms can be developed by:

• Your hardware supplier using CoWare technology to deliver a virtual platform that meets your needs.
• CoWare Professional Services team who can deliver years of expertise in creation and deployment of virtual platforms.
• A modeling group within the software team itself. CoWare C/C++-based modeling language makes it a natural fit for software developers to understand the technology.