GreenSocs virtual platforms allow designing, developing, and testing embedded applications as a whole system by modeling both hardware and software together. This enables sizing hardware to match software needs, integrating development, and efficiently debugging and verifying designs. GreenSocs provides integrated virtual platform solutions using open standards like SystemC TLM 2.0. They have expertise in CPU modeling through contributions to QEMU and Gem5, and provide infrastructure libraries, models, and services to help customers develop virtual prototypes.

1. Enabling System Level Design1
GreenSocs Overview
GreenSocs Virtual Platforms let you imagine, design, develop and test
your embedded application as a whole; size your hardware to reflect the
needs of your software; build your software and hardware together;
debug your software and verify your hardware efficiently.

2. Enabling System Level Design2
GreenSocs: Integrated Virtual Platforms
• GreenSocs® is the industrial leader in integrating different Virtual Platform
solutions
• Dr Mark Burton is the founder of GreenSocs. Mark has worked for ARM
managing their modeling group. He was the chair of the OSCI TLM WG
and the OCP-IP SLD WG.
• GreenSocs provided technology behind the TLM-2.0 standard, and the
CCI standard. We continue to be at the heart of SystemC development.
• GreenSocs is a contributor to QEMU, providing technology to support
multi-thread and reverse execution.
• GreenSocs has been in business (incorporated in UK and France), and
profitable, since 2005, including within its client base large multi-nationals.

3. Enabling System Level Design3
THE PROBLEM
Entrée

4. Enabling System Level Design4
IoT : Lots of small devices
• The problem is not building small devices, we know how to do that
• The problem is Connecting, Deploying, Securing them
• Connecting:
• The problem of design is no longer limited to the individual device.
• Deploying:
• Time to market is critical, especially in new emerging IoT devices,
re-spins and prototype development delays adoption and
deployment.
• Securing:
• Testing devices is not just about functionality, but security and conformance.

5. Enabling System Level Design5
No longer can we simply test the device, we must test the devices
impact on the network and other devices.
We must consider the complexities of big data.
The Problem of Testing
• Testing IoT is a major issue:
• 26 Billion IoT units by 2020 (Gartner)
• Enormous data throughput
• An individual working device is not
enough!

6. Enabling System Level Design6
Testing IoT
• Connectivity
• Combined software and hardware that enables
connectivity
• Security
• Security of the device, of the network, and of the data
• Interactivity
• How devices communicate with other devices
• Scalability
• How will scaling effect the network.

7. Enabling System Level Design7
Building a Prototype… The Costs
Building a prototype takes time
Sourcing the parts is expensive
And time-consuming…
The result is fragile and
expensive
AND YOU ONLY HAVE ONE

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THE SOLUTION
Plat principal

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Radio
GreenSocs Virtual Prototypes : The FOSS Solution
• Enable Full Virtual Testing
• Unlimited number of devices
• Full interconnectivity modeled
• Complete production software and
hardware stack.
• Simple to deploy, low investment
• Enable H/W and S/W development
from the start of the project.
• Unlimited number of nodes:
Open Source
(no license costs for wide-scale
deployment)
• Based on Standards :
Full interoperability
What’s inside “a” virtual platform
Radio
Network

10. Enabling System Level Design10
GreenSocs Solution: Bring together projects
IP Generation Tools
e.g. Verilog to SystemC
Verilator
Debug Environments
Including eclipse.
Core IP models
SystemC modeling and
integration libraries
Profiling and
Code Coverage
kcachegrind
lcov

11. Enabling System Level Design11
Open Source SystemC Standard
SystemC TLM-2.0 IEEE 1666 is :
The Virtual Platform Standard
• Open Source Simulator available for download from Accellera.org
Corporate members 2016
• GreenSocs technology at the heart of TLM-2.0 standard.
• All GreenSocs interfaces use TLM-2.0
• GreenSocs helping Accellera forge a new Model to tool standard.
• Preview available in GreenConfig.
• Our solutions are tool independent, and work with all vendors.

12. Enabling System Level Design12
Based on Existing and stable technology
IoT Aerospace Automotive Health Mobile Embedded
• Virtual Platforms used in many sectors: boost time to market
• Highly suited to IoT:
• Low cost of adoption
• Time to market is critical
• Networking complexity increasing
• Specific demands of IoT sector:
• Models of environmental factors,
• Models of connectivity networks.

13. Enabling System Level Design13
QEMU : Our Preferred source of CPU models
• QEMU is the defacto standard Virtualizer.
• Free and Open Source.
• It is over 10 years old
• GreenSocs is a key contributor:
Reverse execution and Multi-Core TCG Kernel.
• Regular committers from many organizations
43000 1000 989,863
Commits Contributors Lines of code
…

14. Enabling System Level Design14
THE ADVANTAGES
Dessert

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Virtual Platforms drive your business
Research
Realize
Revenue
Reuse
Image your ideas
realized…
Models enable:
 Parallel development
 Team communication
 Faster debug
 Quicker bring up
 Better test.
Models enable customer
interactions, during
sales, and for better
support.
Models are the
basis of re-use
decisions.
Size your H/W for your S/W
Verify virtually, before it
impacts revenue!

16. Enabling System Level Design16
hardware development
software development
Integration Validation and test
Virtual Platforms reduce Time and Risk.
Effort
Limited Critical
Integration
points
Continual
Integration
Reduce Risk
Models become a critical tool for S/W
teams to do their job right
Save Time
Improve quality
Effort

17. Enabling System Level Design17
Classic V Design Flow
✔
Verification
And
Test
Specification
H/W Design
S/W Design
Integration
Add a Virtual Platform

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Accelerate V Design Flow
✔
Verification
And
Test
Specification
H/W Design
S/W Design
Integration
HW and SW developed
together.
Early verification and test
Reduce Risk
Reduce Time
Leap straight to Verification

19. Enabling System Level Design19
IoT: the network, and real world conditions.
Develop Devices and Applications
with production tool chain, test with real world
conditions with no physical constraints
Across the full network of
many devices

20. Enabling System Level Design20
Importance of Open Source
Software development costs are
rocketing.
We need more and more
engineers…
Those engineers need
more and more tools.
Open Source, Pay for the development,
not the deployment
Provide ALL your software engineers with the
same model with no license cost!
Keep the model source Free Forever

21. Enabling System Level Design21
Importance of Standards
Your product
Is their component
Her tool choice
Must not force your choice!
Models must be tool independent
They must use the Standard interfaces
Hence SystemC TLM-2.0
Is not his choice

22. Enabling System Level Design22
GreenSocs : principle offers
CONSULTANCY AND SERVICES
The Experts in Virtual platforms:
Creation, deployment, integration
Tool independent – vendor neutral.
Allow us to guide you to success
MODEL DEVELOPMENT
Virtual Platforms based integrated development environments, for
CoTs or specialist devices,
ready for your software engineers to be productive.
All models adhere to STANDARDS
All model source provided.
OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPMENT
Adding to the existing open source tools and models.
‘Upstreaming’ and dissemination

23. Enabling System Level Design23
More information:
www.greensocs.com

24. Enabling System Level Design24
GreenSocs Technology

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Virtualization
Emulation
Virtual Platform
Virtualization
(Para-)Virtualization
Hardware
Algorithm execution
Or full system virtualization
Application
O/S
Virtual platform
(model)
‘real
binary’
Full binary execution
on virtual
platform (model)
Application
O/S
FPGA
Full binary execution
on REAL
platform (FPGA)
Application
O/S
Hardware
Full binary execution
on
Final Hardware

26. Enabling System Level Design26
Open source simulator,
or SystemC standard Vendor tool
Processors Communication Devices
Command and control
Back-end
Device Drivers
O/S
Application Stack
Model Based Virtual Platform Architecture
Component
Library
library
Or
Client Library
Virtual Platform Model
Interoperability Layer

27. Enabling System Level Design27
Technology Expertise
• SystemC : IEEE 1666 The Virtual Platform Standard
• Used for System Level Design and Construction
• GreenSocs has donated major parts of the SystemC standard (TLM2.0, CCI…)
• GreenSocs has a large infrastructure library to assist in writing models.
• QEMU
• Used for ‘Programmer’s View (LT)’ models
• Contributions:
• VirtIO support
• Reverse Execution
• SystemC integration
• GEM5
• Used for ‘Architectural analysis (AT)’ models
• Contributions:
• SystemC integration

28. Enabling System Level Design28
GreenSocs SystemC Infrastructure.
• Model Construction
• Eases building register definitions, state machines etc
• Scripting (Python)
• Model to Model communication
• Busses and routers (e.g. AMBA, PCIe, OCP, etc)
• Signals (interrupts etc)
• Serial, Ethernet, Graphics etc….
• Model to Tool communication
• Configuration, (inc Lua)
• Control (Run time re-configuration)
• Inspection (outputs and tracing).
• Model IP
• Routers,
• simple IP blocks,
• libraries (Graphics, communication)
• Tools
• Integration with Qemu, GEM5, Eclipse and other tools.
ToolVendorIndependent
OPENSOURCE

29. Enabling System Level Design29
QEMU
• QEMU is a virtualization engine
• It uses Dynamic translation to be very very fast.
• We recommend that QEMU is used for software development,
test and debug.
• QEMU is extremely well known and very solid and reliable.
• QEMU is under extremely active development supported by a
large community
• QEMU covers a vast range of CPU’s and Platforms

30. Enabling System Level Design30
Qemu and SystemC
• SystemC is used to model h/w components in a ‘standard’
way.
• SystemC models can be used in a variety of EDA tool
environments.
• Combining Qemu and SystemC gives the ability to use the
power of Qemu’s CPU simulation environment along with
the standard approach to adding devices.
Processors Communication Devices
Command and control
Back-end

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QBox
• Wraps up QEMU in a TLM2-0 API such that it can be used in
standard SystemC
• QEMU is a generic and open source virtualizer – it covers
almost all CPU architectures and achieves extremely high
performance.
SystemC
QBox
(qemu)
TLM
QBox

32. Enabling System Level Design32
QBox features
• QBox is multi-threaded – the QEMU CPU executes in it’s own
thread.
• SystemC code is always executed in it’s own thread to
preserve the integrity of SystemC code.
• (legacy code can be optimized to prevent too many context switches)
• QEMU and SystemC are synchronized on ‘quantums’ (as
defined by TLM 2.0).
• Interrupts are handled asynchronously by QEMU.

33. Enabling System Level Design33
Extending Qemu for EDA virtulization
• MULTI Thread Qemu
• A massive speed improvement for Qemu to take
advantage of multi-core hosts
• SystemC integration
• The ability to mix SystemC models with Qemu.
• Reverse Execution
• The ability to find a bug, and step backwards (in time)
to find the source of the bug.
• GreenSocs has a fast implementation which is
compatible with SystemC.
Processors Communication Devices
Command and control
Back-end

34. Enabling System Level Design34
Gem5
• Gem5 is a cycle approximate simulator.
• It is at least 10x slower than QEMU
• It can be very accurate.
• Companies such as ARM use Gem5 to
explore CPU architecture.
• Some models are available publically
• Gem5 can be very useful as the CPU model within a
SystemC simulation environment.

35. Enabling System Level Design35
Existing Model database overview:
X86 ARM MIPS Alpha PowerPC SPARC Micro-
blaze
Cold-
fire
Cris SH4 Xtensa
Fast
SW dev
model
(LT)
✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Cycle
Accurate
HW dev
model
(AT)
✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
CPU Family coverage:
Full list (of several hundred) available on GreenSocs.com

36. Enabling System Level Design36
GreenSocs Summary
GreenSocs
Modelling
Services
• GreenSocs specialises in
understanding the
problems of modelling,
and providing tailored
appropriate solutions
GreenSocs
Open Source
Infrastructure
• Infrastructure freely provided
• keep your code
Tool Independent.
• Maximise productivity,
interoperability and re-use.
• Cost effective infrastructure
development and maintenance.

37. Enabling System Level Design37
More information:
www.greensocs.com