This week is ARM Techcon, the largest ARM technical conference of the year. It also marks the one year anniversary of the Cycle Model team joining ARM from Carbon Design Systems. These two events are best understood by describing what it was like to attend ARM Techcon before and after joining ARM.
Before the team was part of ARM, we always attended Techcon and participated in the exhibit hall doing demos and by giving technical talks on virtual prototyping. As Carbon Design Systems we typically learned about new IP when it was announced at Techcon. After product announcements were made, cycle accurate model users would immediately ask for models of the newly announced IP. It took time to create models and release them for use in virtual prototyping projects. This resulted in a 12 to 18 month gap from the time lead partners starting engaging with ARM on new IP and when cycle accurate models were available. By this time most of the IP evaluation, configuration choices, and system design work was complete.
After joining ARM a year ago, the Cycle Model team is now creating models well in advance of new IP announcements. The initial goal was to produce the first cycle accurate models at or soon after beta. During 2016 the team has done this on a number of new models which were ready just after beta, and in one case a model was produced for early IP evaluation even before beta. Another recent example is the Cortex-R52 which was announced in September and the Cycle Model was available and being used by ARM partners before it was announced and is now available for all users on ARM IP Exchange.
ARM Techcon is now much different for the Cycle Model team. Instead of learning about new IP at the conference, Cycle Models are available when the IP announcements are made. This week ARM announced the Cortex-M33 and Cortex-M23 CPUs and the Cycle Models are part of the announcement.
Early model availability has opened up new opportunities for Cycle Models to be used in IP evaluation, configuration, and early SoC design. For ARM partners considering licensing new IP, ARM Fast Models and Cycle Models are a great way to get hands-on experience to understand the architecture and performance improvements. In the future, models will play a a bigger role in helping ARM demonstrate new IP to partners and making it easier for partners to select the right IP for new projects.
ARM Cycle Models are 100% cycle accurate models and are ideal for hardware design and performance analysis. Typical usage:
- IP selection and configuration
- Analysis of HW/SW interaction
- Benchmarking and optimization
ARM Fast Models are instruction accurate models running at speeds up to 200 MHz and are ideal for software development and testing. Typical usage:
- Functional software debugging
- Software profiling and optimization
- Software validation and continuous integration testing