Arm Virtual Hardware (AVH) provides simulation models, software tooling, and infrastructure that can be integrated into CI/CD and MLOps development flows.

AVH supports the software development cycle of embedded, IoT, and ML applications and provides essential components for effective test and validation environments. Arm Virtual Hardware is flexible and can run any RTOS that is designed for Cortex-M or bare metal code that interacts with the processor.

Arm Virtual Hardware offers a comprehensive tool integration along with resources for software developers and can therefore run complex applications and software integration tests. A potential workload could be a sensor-fusion Machine Learning (ML) application that connects to the Internet via an IoT operating system.

Arm Virtual Hardware consists of the following components:

• Arm Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) are precise simulation models of Cortex-M device sub-systems and are designed for complex software verification and testing. This allows simulation-based test automation of various software workloads, including unit tests, integration tests, and fault injection.
• Arm Virtual Hardware Services provide a cloud-native infrastructure for software test and validation. These services can be integrated into various CI/CD and MLOps environments that range from GitHub to on-premise IT infrastructure. The Arm Virtual Hardware services are available via the AWS Marketplace (and later also via other Cloud Service providers).
• Arm Virtual Hardware Developer Resources gives you access to interface drivers that map to virtual targets and physical hardware along with Python scripts for I/O simulation. The documentation explains how to integrate Arm Virtual Hardware into typical CI/CD environments. Usage examples show typical usage cases and range from audio processing, ML algorithm testing, up to IoT applications that interface to Cloud Service providers.
• Software Development Environments can be used with Arm Virtual Hardware. So, Arm Fixed Virtual Platforms are an integral part of the Keil MDK Professional Edition that is a comprehensive software tool suite for creating Cortex-M-based applications and related validation and test processes. Other IDEs and debuggers can be used to connect remotely to Arm Virtual Hardware services.

Arm Virtual Hardware - Components

Documentation Structure

User Benefits

Test without Hardware

AVH allows to verify your code without the need for physical hardware which provides a robust test environment that enables:

• Early software development for faster time-to-market
• Select optimal target device once the software workload is analysed
• Re-target applications to production hardware with driver abstractions

Verify Correctness

Arm Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) are Arm simulation models validated with the same process as the CPU IP. Specially it allows you to:

• Perform algorithm testing with identical logical behaviour of the target device
• Precisely repeat complex input patterns in CI/CD test environments
• Analyse software behaviour with event annotations

Evaluate Performance

Software algorithms for Digital Signal Processing (DSP) or Machine Learning (ML) frequently require significant CPU resources and need to be optimized for the target hardware. Comparing performance of such "load heavy" algorithms requires that they can be automatically executed with different configurations parameters but using identical input.

Arm Virtual Hardware Services allows users to test their programs at scale with reproducible input patterns and so validate and optimize application performance which allows you to:

• Compare speed of different implementations of an algorithm
• Identify timing issues during system integration
• Optimize resources (i.e. data buffers) towards application requirements

Continuous Testing

Applying continuous integration work flows for embedded applications can be complicated by the specifics of development environments and the need of executing the program on target hardware. So the development teams are often reluctant to spend initial effort setting up the continuous integration (CI) workflow even though the long-term benefits are undisputed as shown on the Figure below

Comparison of test efforts in CI and no CI workflows

Arm Virtual Hardware simplifies the setup and use of CI workflows in embedded projects.

For unit and integration tests virtual targets offer additional advantages over hardware, including:

• Speed - no overhead for flashing the application on physical hardware. This saves time on small and fast unit tests.
• Scale - virtual platforms can scale to run many tests in parallel. This makes virtual platforms more cost-effective than a farm of physical hardware.
• Maintenance – unlike physical hardware, virtual platforms do not overheat, wear out from overuse, break from misuse, or use physical space and resources.
• Upgrades – virtual platforms can be adapted and re-configured to match corresponding changes to the underlying hardware platform that is under development. These types of changes can be costly or impossible with physical hardware.

Release History

For details of the AVH AMI content see AMI Inventory.

Known Limitations

The current beta version of of Arm Virtual Hardware has the following known issues:

Virtual Peripherals:

• After processor reset virtual interfaces may not work correctly. So it is required to restart the debug/run session.

Feedback and Support

Arm Virtual Hardware is supported during public beta via this Arm forum. Your feedback will influence our future roadmap and we try to help you promptly with your questions.