Fast HW/SW Cosimulation for Embedded Multiprocessor System Design

在这项研究中，我们已经开发出的技术和工具，嵌入式软件和硬件的快速协同仿真。在这两年里，我们完成了以下工作。我们已经开发了两种技术的嵌入式多处理器系统的协同仿真。(1)多个RTOS仿真器与一个或多个硬件仿真器之间的灵活通信技术。(2)一种在RTOS仿真器之间发送/接收中断的技术.我们开发了一种RTOS仿真器和硬件仿真器之间的同步技术。硬件模拟器向RTOS模拟器发送定时器节拍，定时器处理器接收节拍并更新每个RTOS模拟器中的本地定时器。我们已经开发了一种技术，用于多核主机上的快速协同仿真。通过使用RPC和主机上的共享内存，降低了仿真器间的通信开销.我们开发了一种与SystemC语言进行协同仿真的技术，该语言已成为硬件设计和验证的热门语言。基于我们开发的协同仿真器，我们还开发了一种有效的嵌入式系统设计和验证的方法。我们已经进行了一个案例研究与现实世界的应用程序，以评估本研究中开发的硬件/软件协同仿真器的有效性。一个MPEG编码器/解码器的应用程序被用作一个示范性的例子。在一个多核主机上，两个RTOS模拟器，一个HDL模拟器和一个C模型成功地和有效地执行。

In this research, we have developed technology and tools for fast cosimulation of embedded software and hardware. For the two years, we have completed the following achievements.1. We have developed the two techniques for cosimulation of embedded multiprocessor systems.(1) A flexible communication technique between multiple RTOS simulators and one or more hardware simulators.(2) A technique for sending/receiving interrupts between RTOS simulators.2. We have developed a synchronization technique between RTOS simulators and hardware simulators. A hardware simulator sends timer ticks to RTOS simulators, and a timer handler receives the ticks and updates an local timer in each RTOS simulator.3. We have developed a technique for fast cosimulation on multi-core host computers. We have reduced the inter-simulator communication overhead speed by using not only RPC but also shared memory on a host computer.4. We have developed a techniques for cosimulation with the SystemC language, which has become popular for hardware design and validation.5. Based on the cosimulator which we have developed, we have also developed a methodology for efficient design and validation of embedded systems.6. We have conducted a case study with a real-world application in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the HW/SW cosimulator developed in this research. An MPEG encoder/decoder application was used as a demonstrative example. On a multi-core host computer, two RTOS simulators, one HDL simulator and one C model were successfully and efficiently executed.