OVP simulators and emulators with ARC models

Welcome to the Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) simulator and ARC models. These make it easy and efficient to develop software on ARC models of processors on your desktop PC running Windows XP or Linux.

Free Simulation for Non-Commercial Use

The OVPsim simulator is available to download and use on Windows and Linux, runs between 100 mips to 2,000 mips on a standard desktop PC and includes open source models of the ARC models.

ARC models

The ARC models can be downloaded and run from the ARC models download pages.

Support

Support is available through our forums, and information on model availability is through our wiki based library pages.

Registration to download

You will need to be registered and logged-in to download any files from this OVP site. Click here to register/login.

OVP beginnings

OVP was founded by Imperas and they provide embedded software development tools including multicore debug and advanced software verification and the tools target ARC models for use with bare metal and embedded OSes. OVPsim is free for non-commercial usage. If you need a simulator for commercial use - please contact Imperas.

Videos of demonstrations of ARC models

To watch recorded demonstrations of how easy it is to download and use ARC models, then click here to have a look at the videos.

Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) and its focus

To learn about the focus of OVP and ARC models, then click here.

OVP Technology

To learn about the technology of OVP and ARC models, then click here.

Models available from OVP and how to develop your own models

To find out about the other models available from OVP related to ARC models, then click here.

OVP FAQ

For answers to commonly asked questions regarding OVP and Open Virtual Platforms, then click here.

Virtualized Software Development

If you are looking to use Eclipse or GDB to do application development with ARC models, then click here.

About OVP

The focus of OVP is to accelerate the adoption of the new way to develop embedded software - especially for SoC and MPSoC platforms. If you are developing software to run in an embedded system you will probably already be using an Instruction Set Simulator (ISS) and associated debugger. As you move to having multiple processors or cores in your design then you will need more than just a single ISS. What is needed is a model of your platform that includes models of all the processors or cores and models of the peripherals and behavioral components that the software communicates with. This is a Virtual Platform, or more simply just a simulation model of your design. OVP provides this for you: libraries of processor and behavioral models, and APIs for building you own processors, peripherals and platforms. This is just what is needed to use existing models or build your own, and OVP is easy to use, open, flexible, and importantly, free for non-commercial use.

If you want to understand the rationale for the use of Virtual Platforms and the industry developments that have driven the creation of OVP - please look at the slides or listen to the presentation from Imperas, the company who developed the base for OVP. If you want to see who is involved with OVP and what the industry is saying then please visit the news pages.

The industry is facing a rising challenge:

"30 to 50 per cent of R&D budgets are spent on software, and the cost is rising 20 per cent a year. The software effort overtakes the hardware effort at 130nm."
Jack Browne, MIPS Technologies

"Some say we are at a crisis stage with the software side overwhelming the hardware side. Driving some of this is the proliferation of cores in system-on-chip (SoC) devices."
Steve Roddy, Tensilica

Adopting Virtual Platforms enables earlier development and testing of software, dramatically reducing SoC schedules and should significantly reduce initial development and maintenance costs for embedded software.

"Imperas believes that software virtual platform infrastructure should be open and be freely available. To that end, we are sharing, making public, and making open our simulation infrastructure technologies with the intention of establishing a common, open standard platform for software virtual platforms for software developers. We started developing our simulation infrastructure in 2004 and it has been in customer production use since early 2006. We are making this technology available to OVP users. However, it is not solely through our efforts that these technologies become successful. Participation of organizations and individuals around the world is critical to the success of OVP. We thank all those that are participating in this community."
Simon Davidmann, Imperas, Jan 2008

Please sign-up for and participate in the forums, have a look at new developments, and please do download some of the examples, get a feel for the benefits you can get from the adoption of OVP - and please use OVP in your commercial, research, or educational projects - and use the forums for feedback, advice, questions - and to get involved please go to and 'get involved' in the forum!

The Rationale for Software Virtual Platforms