Combination of instruction set simulation and abstract RTOS model execution for fast and accurate target software evaluation

Instruction set simulation and real time operating system modeling have become important issues for the design of distributed embedded systems. This paper presents a holistic approach to simulate a distributed, embedded system that includes target software, processing units, and abstract RTOS within a virtual prototype environment. The processing unit is modeled by an ISS, which is embedded in a SystemC environment to allow the integration into a platform model. In comparison to existing approaches, the RTOS is not directly running on the ISS but outsourced and replaced by an RTOS model. This step strongly reduces simulation time since the execution on the ISS is much more time consuming in contrast to the execution on the host processor. The results show the theoretical and measured performance gain depending on the RTOS scheduler and task switching.