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SIM-V for Ultra-Fast RISC-V Simulation
MachineWare GmbH, a German virtual prototyping company, has introduced SIM-V, a revolutionary RISC-V instruction set simulator. SIM-V enables users to kickstart their software development and verification well in advance of physical hardware prototypes being available.
Its rapid simulation performance allows for comprehensive verification of even the most complex target software, including RISC-V Android, as showcased at Embedded World 2023. SIM-V incorporates essential RISC-V ISA extensions, such as the Vector extension, to support the RVA22 profile. Furthermore, it can be easily expanded with custom instructions, registers, and more.
For comprehensive system verification, MachineWare offers the integration of SIM-V-based RISC-V processor models into various commercial and open simulation environments. The company provides an IEEE standard SystemC TLM-2.0 integration and a TLM productivity library called VCML (Virtual Component Modeling Library), which is open-source. VCML comes with numerous free models and model building blocks, enabling swift setup of full system simulations. Additionally, VCML includes tool interfaces that seamlessly integrate SIM-V with standard debuggers like GDB or Lauterbach’s Trace32. It also offers scripting support for integrating SIM-V into a Continuous Integration (CI) environment. This integration allows users to automatically test each commit of their target software, either on-premise or in the cloud. By incorporating SIM-V into CI systems, test execution times are drastically reduced, compute resources are conserved, and developers can resume their work more promptly.
Lukas Jünger, the managing director and co-founder of MachineWare, states, "System complexity increases annually, and human error is inevitable. Even small embedded systems execute software stacks comprising millions of lines of code. Our tools empower customers to simulate their entire SoC and extensively test their target software, ensuring correct, safe, and secure operation. With SIM-V, complex test suites can be established, executed more quickly, and scaled up—all before approaching the hardware."
In addition to RISC-V, MachineWare offers instruction set simulators for the ARM architecture and custom processor architectures utilizing the same advanced technology for superior simulation performance, seamless integration, and extensive third-party tool support.
