Shifting-Left Together – Enabling the Ecosystem with Virtual Platforms

'Shift left' is the practice of breaking dependency chains in hardware and software development, so that tasks can start earlier and run in parallel. The goal is to shorten the time to market and have software ready with support for new hardware features when the hardware arrives. Inside silicon companies, it typically means using methodologies like virtual platforms, environment models, emulators, FPGA prototypes, and hybrids thereof to allow firmware, boot code, drivers, operating systems, and application code to be developed, tested, and integrated before the chips arrive. However, shift-left cannot just be internal to a chip vendor – it is necessary to enable the ecosystem in the pre-silicon phase in order to build a complete product. In this paper, we will look at pre-silicon software and system development using virtual platforms in an ecosystem. There are technical issues like building and delivering models, as well as project aspects like how to rejig projects to shift left. What has to be modeled – a reference platform or an actual customer system? What happens once hardware arrive? How is the virtual platform leveraged for system integration, including other system components and existing hardware generations? How do they fit with existing workflows? The introduction of virtual platforms can also enable deeper changes to how product development, integration, and testing are done ? in particular across generations.