Imperas has launched their second-generation virtual platform technology. In so doing, they’re adding more capability as well as restructuring their product offering.
We’ve been following their OVPworld approach for a few years, now, Dick Selwood having covered the technology back in 2009. What was then OVPsim has morphed into three “DEV” products – C*DEV, S*DEV, and M*DEV for microControllers, microprocessors (S=Standard), and multicore, respectively. (The * is pronounced “star.”) Each of these has the capability of generating a system model comprising any of the many model components in their library, and it comes with the simulator for executing that model.
They’ve now announced their M*SDK product, which layers new debugging and analytic capabilities on top of the DEV products. These are the typical kinds of probing and profiling tools that a software developer will want to use in optimizing code and/or platform execution. They include:
- Code coverage
- Memory and cache analysis
- Execution profiling
- Instruction and function tracing
- Fault injection
- Protocol verification
- Exception and interrupt analysis
- OS task tracing
- OS scheduler analysis
- Memory protection verification
- Shared resource introspection
They’ve also extended their code morphing approach to include references to models of processors that come with their own ISS. In other words, it’s not just a model – it’s a model plus a tool. Such a tool is a slave to the overarching simulator, but can be called to deliver quick, accurate responses to simulation events. Called ToolMorphing, it not only creates the model code on the fly, but binds (for lack of a better word coming to mind right now) an associated tool for that model if there is one.
Meanwhile, the venerable OVPsim has been relegated to use as their academic product. It’s still around, but is no longer featured as a commercial focus.
You can find more information in their release.
