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Speed or Accuracy? ARM Shares Insights on Virtual PrototypingThe Design Chronicles - Christine YoungJun. 30, 2016 |
Which is more critical for you: simulation speed or accuracy? Can you have it all?
As consumers continue to thirst for more and better features in their electronic products, design complexity grows, silicon manufacturing costs increase, and competition rages on. Virtual prototyping offers one way to get your designs right the first time and completed as quickly as possible.
Javier Orensanz, GM of the Development Solutions Group at ARM, shared his insights on virtual prototyping on Thursday, June 23, during a talk at Cadence’s San Jose headquarters. ARM remains focused on two modeling paths:
- Fast models, which are fast but timing inaccurate. This is useful for getting software development done quickly and inexpensively.
- Cycle models, which are slow but timing accurate. The advantage here lies in their use for architectural exploration—it’s easier to configure things and also to get data out of the model faster than with RTL.
ARM sees great potential in the open-source gem5, creates its own C models, and uses open-source technologies like QEMU. Customers, of course, want fast and very accurate models for prototyping, but right now, this amounts to nothing more than snake oil, said Orensanz.
