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Better Software. Faster!
Best practices in virtual prototyping
Better Software. Faster! dives deep into virtual prototyping as the key methodology to enable concurrent hardware/software development by decoupling the dependency of the software development from hardware availability. The ability to start software development much earlier in the design cycle drives a true "shift left" of the entire product development schedule and results in better products that are available earlier.
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Overview
If you are a software developer, manager or executive feeling pressured to meet a product release deadline for the next tradeshow or customer project, while the availability of the board for your next system-on-chip (SoC) keeps getting delayed, this book explains a methodology to enable earlier software availability by removing the hardware dependency.
If you are a product manager being asked to leapfrog your closest competitor for the next key product, this book will tell you what your development team can do to make this happen.
If you are a vice president of product engineering, this book explains how to engage the software team much earlier to improve delivery of a successful product with tightly optimized hardware and software.
If you are a general manager, this book provides you with the insight into some of the virtual prototyping best practices major companies have embraced to make a sustainable impact on their bottom line.
Regardless of your vantage point, this book aims to help companies understand the value of making a process shift in their software development approach.
Chapters
About this book: This book is a deep dive into a key methodology enabling concurrent hardware/software development by decoupling the dependency of software development from hardware availability, known as virtual prototyping. The ability to start software development much earlier in the design cycle drives a true "shift-left" of the entire product development schedule
Chapter 1: We start by reviewing software development complexity resulting from the race towards "smarter" products, including the multicore challenge, the tight balance between power and performance requirements and the growing concern about security.
Chapter 2: We introduce virtual prototyping as the engine behind "shift left" and explain the main benefits of this methodology to help software developers cope with tight software schedules and complex software bring up, test and debug challenges. Case studies by TI, Siemens and Altera.
Chapter 3: We illustrate the advantages of using a combined solution, consisting of a virtual prototype and debug and analysis tools for software bring up tasks like boot sequence development, operating system porting and driver development. Case studies by Fujitsu, TI and Altera.
Chapter 4: We describe how the automotive industry is becoming more software centric and dealing with functional safety questions. Virtual prototypes are helping by providing key capabilities to enable extensive software testing. Case studies by Bosch, Hitachi and General Motors.
Chapter 5: We examine how virtual prototypes enable faster software development across the entire electronic supply chain. Case studies by Altera, ARM, Linaro and Renesas.
Chapter 6: For specific software bring up and validation use cases and for software driven verification it can be useful to combine virtual prototypes with hardware-based prototyping and verification solutions like FPGA-based prototypes and emulators. Case study by Ricoh.
Chapter 7: Semiconductor Engineering Editor in Chief Ed Sperling provides his view on the electronics industry and discusses the case for virtual prototyping with industry experts from Microsoft, Lauterbach and Synopsys.
Contributors
Chris Balough — Altera Corporation
Chris Balough is the Sr. Director of SoC Product Marketing at Altera.
Jeff DaSilva — Altera Corporation
Jeff DaSilva currently leads the Embedded Tools Team at Altera, where his team is responsible for delivering the SoC and Nios II Embedded Development Suites.
Tom De Schutter — Synopsys, Inc.
Tom De Schutter is responsible for driving the virtual prototyping business at Synopsys.
Jerry Flake — Lauterbach, Inc.
Jerry Flake is the Sales Manager for Lauterbach, Inc., and is responsible for both Sales and Marketing of JTAG/Nexus debuggers and in-circuit-emulators.
Paolo Giusto — General Motors
Paolo Giusto is an R&D Staff Researcher at General Motors, at the Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office in Palo Alto, CA, with over 25 years of industrial experience.
Naonobu Hasumi — Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited
Mr. Hasumi joined Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited in 1993 where he has worked in layout design, RTL design and system level design.
Mamoru Kani — Kyocera Document Solutions
Mamoru Kani is manager of the SoC design group for office electronics products at Kyocera Document Solutions.
Robert Kaye — ARM
Robert Kaye is a Technical Specialist at ARM focusing on system modeling.
Donald J. McCune — Hitachi America, Ltd.
DJ McCune has been working at Hitachi America R&D since 2003. His current position is Group Leader/Senior Researcher for the Embedded Systems Group.
Victoria Mitchell — Altera Corporation
Victoria (Vicki) Mitchell manages the worldwide embedded software team at Altera, where her group is responsible for models and simulation, development tools, and OS enablement for Altera's microprocessor subsystems.
Khasim Syed Mohammed — Linaro
Khasim works at Linaro as Android Tech Lead. Khasim has 12+ years of rich experience on Linux distributions, kernel and device drivers for ARM SoCs.
Naoya Morita — Ricoh
Morita-san manages a verification team at Ricoh with a focus on virtual prototyping for hardware and software development with the goal to reduce turnaround time.
Achim Nohl — Synopsys, Inc.
Achim Nohl is a technical marketing manager for virtual prototyping at Synopsys.
Krishnan Palaniswami — Microsoft
Krishnan Palaniswami has been involved in the design and development of semiconductor based products for over 25 years.
Victor Reyes — Synopsys, Inc.
Victor Reyes works as Technical Marketing Manager for virtual prototyping at Synopsys, Inc.
Chris Rommel — VDC Research
Chris is responsible for syndicated research and consulting engagements focused on development and deployment solutions for intelligent systems.
Marc Serughetti — Synopsys, Inc.
Marc Serughetti is Director of Business Development for virtual prototyping at Synopsys.
Troy Scott — Synopsys, Inc.
Troy Scott, product marketing manager, is responsible for FPGA-based prototyping software tools at Synopsys.
Filip Thoen — Synopsys, Inc.
Filip Thoen is currently Product Architect in the virtual prototyping group at Synopsys.
Martin Vaupel — Bosch
Since 2004 Martin has been with Robert Bosch GmbH, first designing engine control units, now working at Corporate Research where his main research is exploiting virtual platforms for automotive applications.
Andreas Graf von Schwerin — Siemens
Andreas Graf von Schwerin is Principal for Electronic System Simulation at Siemens Industry , where he responsible for the introduction of System Level Design Methodology into the HW/SW-development process for industrial automation and electrical drive products.
Ralph Zak — Synopsys, Inc.
Ralph Zak is Director Business Development, Emulation Products, at Synopsys.