Oxford, United Kingdom, October 3rd, 2017 – Imperas Software Ltd., the leader in high-performance software simulation and virtual platforms, will participate in the 15th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, with Larry Lapides presenting a paper: “RISC-V Models and Simulation Enable Early Software Bring Up“.

The 15th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference will be held October 18 – 19, 2017 at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) – Calit2.  The theme for this year’s conference is “Secure and Intelligent Silicon Systems for Emerging Applications.”

Paper: RISC-V Models and Simulation Enable Early Software Bring Up

• As RISC-V processor cores start to be designed into new SoCs, software requirements need to be considered.  One of the issues with moving to RISC-V based SoCs is porting operating systems, drivers, firmware and applications from existing platforms.  Can this be easily accomplished?  Can it be accomplished, in the majority, before silicon is available?  Virtual platforms, or software simulation, can help accelerate this porting and bring up process.  Virtual platforms provide a near real time software simulation environment for executing the actual software binaries, plus have full debug, analysis and test tools.

• Now there are not only models of RISC-V processor cores – generic RISC-V, SiFive, Andes; 32 and 64 bit cores – but also models of platforms running operating systems.  These Extendable Platform Kits (EPKs) enable software engineers to quickly get started, months before any hardware, even FPGA prototypes, are available.  For example, there is an EPK available of a Microsemi platform, using a SiFive E31 RV32-based core, running FreeRTOS.

• Virtual platform environments also enable the use of debug, analysis and test tools, not only for RISC-V, but in the case of a heterogeneous platform, supporting the multiple processors on the platform.  Also, as Agile methods, including Continuous Integration Continuous Test (CICT) are adopted by embedded software teams, virtual platforms with their ease of automation enable this technology to be implemented.

• This presentation will provide a summary of the RISC-V processor models available through the Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) website (www.OVPworld.org), show a demo of the Imperas Microsemi E31/FreeRTOS EPK, and discuss the use of virtual platforms in accelerating migration to RISC-V based SoCs and improving software quality.

When: Exhibit and workshops, October 18 – 19, 2017. Paper Wednesday October 18, 2:20 – 2:50PM.

Where: University of California, Irvine, 4100 Calit2 Bldg. #325, Irvine, CA 92697.

To set up meetings with Imperas, please email sales@imperas.com.

For more information on the 15th International System-on-Chip (SoC) Conference, see http://www.socconference.com.

About Imperas

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