June 3, 2012 -- With the majority of designs today containing one or more embedded processors, the verification landscape is transforming as more companies grapple with the limitations of traditional verification tools. Comprehensive verification of multicore SOCs cannot be accomplished without including the software that will run on the hardware.

The increasing prevalence of complex, multifunctional, networked devices and the rising importance of embedded software create a need for faster simulation run times and full system verification early in the design cycle. Hardware-assisted verification, or emulation, delivers the required capacity and performance for extremely fast, full SOC testing, i.e., hardware and software. But the highcost of emulators has made them affordable only for companies with deep pockets.

Fortunately, recently introduced virtualization technologies which spread the usability and cost of emulators across many simultaneous users will make emulators a more common fixture at small and medium sized companies, as well as larger ones.

By Jim Kenney. (Kenney is the Marketing Director for Mentor Graphics Corp.'s Emulation Division.)