Fast hardware/software co-simulation for virtual prototyping and trade-off analysis

Hardware/software co-simulation is generally performed with separate simulation models. This makes trade-off: evaluation difficult, because the models must be re-compiled whenever some architectural choice is changed. We propose a technique to simulate hardware and software that is almost cycle-accurate, and uses the same model for both types of components. Only the timing information used for synchronization needs to be changed to modify the processor choice, the implementation choice, or the scheduling policy. We shaw how this technique can be used to decide the implementation of a real-life example, a car dashboard controller.