Richard: Larry perhaps we can start by exploring what Virtio’s Virtual Platform technology is.

Larry: Basically our technology creates a fast software emulation of a hardware system; it can be as little as a processor and as much as an entire device, but it allows developers to work in advance of hardware being available.

When we started out we thought we could address the whole market at once so we talked with the OS vendors, device manufactures and semiconductor guys all at once, but we rapidly found that if you did not have the semiconductor device there was no point talking to the device vendors. The device vendors don’t have the information to develop a model of the semiconductor devices, they need to see the device from the semiconductor manufacturer. So pretty quickly we worked out that the place to start was the semiconductor and that is where our traction is right now.

In terms of market segment our focus is on software development in the wireless and handheld space, particularly smart phones. Phone development has moved from proprietary OS to open OS and there has been a huge jump in the complexity of the process. Everyone is looking for better ways to do software development and that is what our technology is designed to do.

Richard: So how does your technology address that need?

Larry: What our platforms do differently, from what simulators have done in the past, is to take a whole system approach. To meet the developers needs you have to go from ROM code all the way out to the application. Software people want to go beyond simply what the processor or memory subsystems are doing into what peripherals, and what IO ports are being used. Then they need to consider user interfaces, screen sizes, live connections to the network for data transfer or video streaming, all those kind of things matter in developing software. As you move out towards applications there is a need to process things like camera input and how that is presented to the user, how it will look on the small screen. So we are taking a whole system approach to address that need.

The Virtio platform gives the developer full visibility into the hardware and software. For example, when software is integrated if they get a hardware interaction problem they can set a breakpoint on a hardware interrupt and single-step through the code, watching what the hardware does. That gives the software developer a really quick way to track down issues.

In addition, Virtio Platforms execute application software on top of the virtual hardware with execution speeds of ten million instructions per second per GHz. They boot many popular operating systems such as Symbian OS in seconds.

As a result we are seeing that our technology delivers improvements in software developer productivity of 2 to 4 times depending on where in the development process the technology is deployed.

Richard: Is that improvement made up from simply providing a whole system emulator?

Larry: No there are several ways our technology improves development and the fact that the developer has a better environment is just one.

Another area is that we don’t have the physical limitations that hardware imposes. Flashing a Symbian OS image into hardware takes 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how complete or big it is, with the virtual hardware we can do it almost instantaneously, so the developer is immediately able to see the effects of their changes rather than having to wait.

But possibly the biggest factor is simply being able to start development and integration earlier, before physical boards can be made available. On a typical hardware based project, developers are creating software early and integrating late. The best of these projects are achieving full integration in 5 to 6 months. Using virtual boards integration can be started far earlier, what we call pre-silicon, and we are starting to see that final integration stage shrinking to 5 or 6 weeks. Starting integration early really pays dividends later in the project.

Richard: As this is a software model of hardware how do you ensure it is right?

Larry: Getting validation that the hardware functionality is what we have built in the software model is certainly one of the main challenges in our development process. The current methodology is centered around unit tests with certified vectors on parts like the processor and all the major components. For the peripherals we tend to develop our own tests. We are also working a methodology which will allow for the tests that are used on the hardware to be used in the software model testbenches. In fact we are even exploring ways of doing early development of the hardware testbench using the software model.

Testing is certainly an important aspect of our development work and one we are constantly focused on improving. However each and every piece of software created and run on the software board is a new test for our system and when these do encounter issues the key is to respond quickly to determine where the fault is, and fix it as quickly as possible.

Richard: Would it be true however that even a model with some flaws is better than no model at all?

Larry: There is no doubt that even with imperfections, and our virtual platforms don’t have many, you gain huge advantages. The advantage of using virtual platforms is streamlining of processes. When we talk to our customers they are all starting software development early and each software developer takes a different approach to solving the problem of how to develop ahead of hardware. With the deployment of virtual platforms the development process is unified and since our customers now have one flow they have improved the synchronization between the hardware and software aspects of the project, reducing the number of problems that occur from different interpretations of the specification.

Richard: From our discussion so far the technology seems mainly for device manufacturers, is there any application for third party application developers?

Larry: The main issue we have at the moment is the cost. For many of our customers the justification for virtual platform technology is easy when measured against the risk of project delays or failure. Addressing the broader community of software developers the risk costs decrease and we need to price for volume. We already have a product package in the Metrowerks CodeWarrior Professional version and we are gearing towards supporting the smaller developer down the road.

The way I expect the technology to move is to first replace some of the solution that manufactures currently use for their early access developers, hardware boards and certification programs, like emulators. Virtio Softboards allow these capabilities to be supplied as a standard by-product of the handset manufacturer’s product development.

Richard: Why do you see softboards as good replacement for emulators?

Larry: Because they will make a huge amount of sense, economically and technically. Today the development of a device emulator is a whole additional development activity, and it does not assist the device development, indeed it can distract from it. With the softboard technology an emulator can simply be created by deploying the production device ROM image, simply use what has already been built. So you have no separate project and the emulator is identical to the device.

Richard: Does this not run the risk of exposing the manufacturers IP? Larry: No we have technology to protect the software image through encryption and other mechanisms so it can not be accessed, transferred and run on hardware or opened up to disassembly. So there should be no concerns about the IP in these ROM images.

Richard: So how long will it be before we see emulators using your softboards technology?

Larry: We are on a roadmap to get there, but this type of application is not interesting until we have devices so we are still concentrating on working with the semiconductor manufactures to build a solid value proposition for the device manufactures. Once we have that really locked away we can move to the handset models and then we can start addressing how to get these models to the developer, which channels to use, whether it be something like Forum Nokia or Sony Ericsson Developer World. Third party developers don’t want to develop an application for OMAP, they want to do it for a Nokia or Siemens device. Sometimes I’m amazed at how fast this industry develops so I don’t think it will be long before we are traveling this road.

Working with software board based emulators clearly offers device manufacturers the potential for significant improvements in the device development process and timescale. For third party developers the benefits are less immediate, although it should mean a better emulator earlier, and of course it means that applications can be compiled for and run on the target hardware throughout the development process.

Web www.virtio.com