Virtual platforms accelerate embedded software development

17th February 2015

Altera Europe

Siobhan O'Gorman

0 0

Altera has collaborated with Mentor Graphics to provide embedded software developers access to Vista virtual platforms that support its entire SoC FPGA portfolio, including the 3rd gen 14nm Stratix 10 SoCs with a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor. The Mentor Graphics Vista SoC virtual platforms are pre-built, fully functional simulation models of the ARM processor subsystems featured in each of Altera’s 28nm, 20nm and 14nm SoC FPGA families.

By enabling large development teams to perform application development and software regression testing in a virtual environment that models an Altera SoC FPGA, the platforms simplify embedded software development and remove the need for expensive hardware.

The Mentor Graphics Vista SoC virtual platforms consist of an Instruction Set Simulator CPU model and peripheral device models. The platforms are delivered as stand-alone binary executable which can be downloaded, installed and run together with a pre-built Linux image on a host PC. For system-level simulation, a model of custom functions in the FPGA fabric can be linked to the virtual platforms. Supporting both bare-metal and Linux OS environments, the platforms allow software execution and debug on multi-core configurations of Altera’s SoCs.

Based on Mentor Graphics Vista technology, the SoC virtual platforms provide users with a seamless migration to Mentor’s Vista Virtual Prototyping solutions. The Vista Virtual Prototyping tool suite provides additional insight into hardware/software interaction or non-intrusive profiling and analysis and extends the SoC virtual platform.

“Virtual prototyping is a proven methodology for software development and providing our customers with a comprehensive set of SoC virtual platforms will greatly reduce their development time while slashing development costs,” said Joerg Bertholdt, Director of Embedded Software Marketing, Altera. “As a result, software developers leveraging any of our SoC solutions can start their development earlier and maximise their design team productivity.”

“Altera is the SoC FPGA industry leader and recognised the importance of providing solutions that are supported by an outstanding set of software tools that simplify hardware and software design,” said Guy Moshe, General Manager, Design Creation Business Unit, Embedded Systems Division, Mentor Graphics. “Our collaboration with Altera to provide a comprehensive portfolio of SoC virtual platforms allows developers of Altera SoC FPGAs to balance performance, accuracy and cost, while dramatically accelerating their software development.”