LIVE WEBINAR: QEMU Co-emulation with FPGA (EU)

Presenter: Krzysztof Szczur, Hardware Verification Products Manager, Aldec

Thursday, April 19, 2018

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM CEST

Abstract: 

The FPGA or ASIC SoC require a robust pre-silicon hardware/software co-verification platform. Virtual platforms are used successfully as high-speed simulation vehicle but only for standard components like CPU, memory, timers and the like. The challenge emerges when custom IP-core is added to the design. Developing device drivers using HDL simulation is counterproductive and testing operating system and application stack is impossible. Hybrid co-emulation of standard machine virtualizer with FPGA bridges the gap in verification environment.

QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator that supports various computer hardware architectures including Intel x86 and ARM® Cortex® families. It can be connected with the Aldec HES-DVM™ emulation platform to provide a hybrid co-emulation environment for SoC designs. We will demonstrate the latest QEMU Bridge designed to provide connection between CPU subsystem in QEMU and custom hardware IP-Core run in the HES FPGA board and mapped as PCI Express device in QEMU. We will also show how software stack GDB debugger can be used in step-lock mode with the Aldec Hardware Debugger to provide full and deterministic view of the entire SoC.

Agenda: 

• SoC Verification Challenges
• Virtual Platform types and limitations
• Emulation platform types and tradeoffs
• Hybrid Co-emulation fix limitations & tradeoffs
• Aldec QEMU Co-emulation Bridge
• Live demo, Hardware-software co-verification on QEMU & HES-DVM Hybrid Platform
• Conclusion
• Q&A

Presenter Bio:

Krzysztof Szczur (aka Chris) is a Hardware Verification Products Manager at Aldec. Krzysztof joined Aldec in 2001 and was a key member of the team that developed HES-DVM™, Aldec's FPGA-based co-simulation, emulation and prototyping technology. In his engineering career he has also worked in the fields of HDL design verification, testbench automation and DO-254 compliance. Krzysztof has practical experience and a deep understanding of verification methodologies with hardware-in-the-loop and. Now, as the product manager, leverages this knowledge cooperating with key customers and Aldec's R&D team to bring innovations in Aldec’s hardware verification products. Krzysztof graduated as M.Eng. in Electronic Engineering (EE) at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, Poland.