When first silicon arrives, the software team should be ready with a stable driver, operating system (OS) and application code–but developed on what? Application-level code can be developed on general-purpose systems or in the cloud, using stubs to represent the SoC and its peripherals. Software unit testing–up to the level of booting the OS–can be done conveniently on a hardware emulation system.
Download this whitepaper to discover the benefits and importance of FPGA prototyping to address the challenges that both hardware and software sides of SoC design teams face and provides an FPGA prototyping solution that ensures improved hardware and software verification productivity.
But then there are the tricky parts
Like integrating the hardware with the software or seeking root cause on obscure or seemingly nonrecurring bugs. What about the daily grind of software and IP regression testing? These tasks require an accurate hardware model, high speed, and visibility/control offered by emulation platforms. They may occur at multiple sites and require a scalable and portable platform.