Cycle-True Simulation of the ST10 Microcontroller Including the Core and the Peripherals

With the rising complexity of electronic systems, containing more and more both hardware and software parts, it becomes necessary to simulate simultaneously hardware and software parts at whatever abstraction level. These simulation techniques, called co-simulation, require fast and flexible simulators. In this paper, we introduce the elaboration of a microcontroller simulator including the core and the peripherals for an accurate hardware/software cosimulation at the clock-cycle level. It is our goal to have a simulator which is fast enough to simulate a few minutes of real time execution within a reasonable laps of time. To be more precise, we deal here with the realization of a simulator for the ST10 microcontroller and its integration into a co-simulation environment. This paper gives our global approach and explains our techniques in detail. It also presents new tracks to obtain improved performances with this kind of simulators.