Software is becoming an increasingly important element in SoCs as embedded systems are integrated into single chips. Such a chip must ship with working software, and, if it includes a platform that will run an OS and drivers and software written by the user, then even more testing is needed to prevent nasty surprises or let-downs.

This sort of testing starts at the architectural planning phase and continues down through the exercising of software on the detailed design. Initially, and for short bits of code, it can be done on a virtual platform – a model of … Read More → "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Models"