First pre-silicon simulation environment for Arm Cortex-A720AE for software defined vehicles

This innovative solution stands as the first accelerated simulation environment to embrace the newly launched Arm Cortex-A720AE CPU semiconductor IP in March 2024.

Building on its late 2023 announcement of collaboration with Arm and AWS, Siemens is extending support to pivotal Arm ecosystem partners. By incorporating selected partner enablement solutions into its cloud-based development platform, Siemens is enabling tier one suppliers and OEMs to commence early software development for the Cortex-A720AE IP. This development paradigm shifts from the conventional approach of waiting for physical silicon, thereby allowing automotive software teams to engage in swift Cloud-based simulation for pre-silicon software development, debugging, and validation well in advance of the silicon's initial availability.

Mike Ellow, Executive Vice President of Electronic Design Automation at Siemens Digital Industries Software, highlighted the significance of this advancement: “The automotive industry’s move to the software defined vehicle means that traditional software and hardware development processes are no longer valid and must evolve to meet the industry’s demands. Our partnership with Arm, supporting an accelerated simulation environment with Cortex-A720AE CPU, is helping to address automotive industry challenges by reducing time-to-market for SDV software through the availability of accelerated automotive platforms well ahead of silicon.”

By leveraging AWS Cloud services for the PAVE360 Cloud-based software development solution, developers can achieve simulation speeds comparable to those of evaluation boards, eliminating the need for the traditionally slower on-premises modelling and simulation infrastructures. This solution is presently accessible to select software ecosystem partners, tier-one suppliers, and OEMs, with a broader availability anticipated subsequently.

Dipti Vachani, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Arm's Automotive Line of Business, commented on the collaboration: “The driver experience is being redefined by a surge of software requirements and AI advances, and as vehicle electronics become increasingly complex automakers have to continue to innovate at pace. By collaborating on new virtual platforms with industry leaders like Siemens, we’re putting our latest Automotive Enhanced technologies into the hands of software developers’ way ahead of silicon availability to dramatically accelerate time to market for the industry.”

To discover more about Siemens' hardware-assisted verification offerings, including PAVE360 and its integration with the Arm Cortex-A720AE IP, Siemens welcomes visitors to the Embedded World conference, taking place from April 9th to 11th in Nuremberg, Germany.