Emulation of a Sparc Microprocessor with the MIT Virtual Wires Emulation System
نویسندگان
چکیده
We describe a complete FPGA-based emulation software system using Virtual Wires technology and present the results of emulating an 18K-gate ASIC implementation of a Sparc microprocessor. Virtual wires overcomes the pincount limitation that formerly restricted the efficiency of FPGAbased logic emulators. The MIT Virtual Wires softwire compiler accepts a netlist description of the system to be emulated and produces programming information for the FPGA hardware, an inexpensive ($3000) board designed for Virtual Wires in-circuit emulation. The compiler also provides an interface to standard logic simulator tools for hardware accelerated simulation. We discuss innovative features of the compiler system and knowledge gained during its construction. A comparison is made of different implementations of the on-chip Virtual Wires circuitry synthesized by the compiler. Several enhancements to the original Virtual Wires concept are presented that will further emulation speed and FPGA utilization.
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Logic emulation with virtual wires
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