Paper Presentation On Virtual Prototype Systems For IT

Virtual Prototype Systems Application Of Embedded Systems

ABSTRACT: By today's standards, early microprocessor- based systems were simple, not least because they typically employed only asingle processor (possibly with a few co- processors, such as a floating-point co- processor) with a relatively simpleinstruction set running at low clock frequency. This processor communicatedwith a small number of comparativelysimple memory and peripheral devices bymeans of a single 8-bit or 16-bit data buswith a simple read/write and signaling protocol.Those days have long gone. There iscurrently a tremendous growth in thedevelopment of systems that involve tens or hundreds of complex processors andhardware accelerators in closely coupled or networked topologies. In addition to tieredmemory structures and multi-layer busstructures, these super systems ² whichmay be executing hundreds of millions totens of billions of instructions per second ² feature extremely complex softwarecomponents, and this software content iscurrently increasing almost exponentially.Aggressive competition makes today'selectronics markets extremely sensitive totime-to-market pressures. This is especiallytrue in consumer markets such as cell phones, where the opportunity for a new product to make an impact can sometimes be as little as two to four months. However,a recent report showed that more than 50 percent of embedded system developmentsrun late, while 20 percent either fail to meettheir requirements specifications or arecancelled in their entirety.