Avoiding design wobbles

Those developing software for mobile, digital consumer, automotive and networking products deal daily with the challenges of cross platform development – the software is being developed on a desktop computer, whilst the final execution platform is an embedded hardware device. The fact that hardware needs to be available in order for activities such as hardware dependent software development, system integration and test to be performed effectively is one the greatest challenges and has the most impact on the development cycle. Apart from the physical hardware only becoming available late in the design cycle, it requires complex and cumbersome tools to provide visibility into the system. And, once that visibility is attained, the physical hardware does not provide full controllability of the system and the hardware is not scalable. This usually has a dramatic impact on the development cycle – ranging from schedule delays to complete redesigns and even cancellation – because the hardware platform combined with the software running on it does not meet the expected performance requirements.