My name is Marc Harbonne and I work today for WindRiver System, in the
past I worked for ST Micro at Crolles site in France, since many years ST
uses Virtualization to provide to Software engineers a simulated platforms
(TLM and SystemC) enables them to develop and debug their software before
the hardware is ready.
The VPP in general will allow us to run OS over simulated system and to
have one common environment based on Eclipse to develop hardware platform
and software.
Today SOC are so complex, they integrate software/hardware (many CPUs)
that is becoming too complex to debug a such environment or to say "this
bug is software bug or an hardware bug) so the need to have the whole
system in one environment for development and debugging is becoming a NEED.
I worked for many years in cooperation with ST through an outsourcing
company called Silicomp.
We develop a tool that allow to visualize behavior of the VPP and other
information , this tool was very useful for developping of MP4
coding/encoding to see the image at different stages of the coding.
But not only, it gives the possibility to test software by giving to the
VPP input, to see how the software react to errors or other unexpected
events.
Today, the tool like Simics or QEMU emulators, we achieved to run
simulation at the same speed like the harware platforms runs.
This is why in few words, the VPP is important for all of us (software
and hardware engineers)