Virtual Prototyping Platform for Architecture Exploration and Functional Safety Analysis
Due to the pandemic, most if not all workers experienced work from home (WFH) leading to temporary stop of traditional development and global collaboration methodologies. The alternative way for collaboration of software and hardware teams is required. Developing remotely can be a challenge in the age of social distancing since accessing remote and scare hardware, and systems for developing and testing is difficult. One feasible solution could be virtual prototyping that enables replacing hardware with software equivalent models of the hardware; at any time, and from anywhere.
The integration of increasingly complex hardware and software is a significant challenge for semiconductor and OEM companies developing next-generation wireless, consumer, and automotive devices. Traditional methods of serialized hardware and software development – where the vast majority of software is developed and verified after the silicon design is complete–often fail to meet aggressive product development schedules. Virtual prototypes are fast, fully functional software models of complete systems that execute unmodified production code and provide unparalleled debug efficiency.
Solutions for the automotive companies should have the ability to combine design and do integration test into a single virtual prototyping platform. Users can determine if the design and integration process will succeed instead of an open-loop design process that often results in design issues identified at integration test. The chosen platform here is VisualSim Architect (VSA) that can accomplish this with a closed-loop design/integration flow by being able to model a complete end-to-end design. The end-to-end design uses many pre-built, pre-tested automotive libraries that generate pre-defined reports to speed development, plus integration testing. The user can evaluate latency, throughput, sub-system utilization, and power of key sub-systems.
Other automotive solutions are focused on algorithm testing, software development, and software testing. The solutions are available as an Instruction Set Simulator to execute the software code without a board, SysML to document the software sequence, C-code generation, math correctness models, and testing solutions by loading software on prototype boards.
The above solutions are used much later in the design process. Hardware and software failures occur because of incorrect specification and not from incorrect manufacturing. These alternate solutions are validating the correctness against imperfect specification. Functional safety tests are done very late in the design cycle and manufacturing changes impact product quality. Current techniques do not allow for multiple failures across truly distributed systems. Making large-scale changes to the architecture at the integration or software development stage is time-consuming, expensive, and will delay the schedule.
VisualSim served the following criteria’s:
- Optimize the specification to meet timing, power, and functionality.
- Create a common executable specification for OEM and suppliers.
- ISO-26262 Parts 4, 5, and 6 are introduced for both design and verification.
- Integrate existing tools and simulators including MatLab and C-code for a time-driven analysis.
The failure types supported include:
- Power Failure: sudden power spikes, reduction in battery life
- Hardware Failures: Complete shutdown of a circuit board or core failure
- Redundant Impact: Handle increased load in the event of a failure
- Software Failure: Modified memory value, Resource Starvation
- RTOS Failure: Overrun on prior task causes the current task to fail
- Network Failure: corrupted messages or congestion within a network
- Cyber-security: Simulate attacks and evaluate algorithm quality on the system throughput
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