OpenCpuX - Open Source Instruction-Set Simulation Integration Kit

Overview

Why

• The open source community has a wealth of different CPU models, each with their own API
• Similarly, various open source (and commercial) virtual prototype simulation frameworks exists, again each with their own APIs
• Re-using CPU models across these frameworks requires individual, laborious adaptation

What

• OpenCpuX provides a standard, open source set of APIs to integrate CPU models into a (virtual prototype) simulator
• The APIs are freely accessible under an open source license

Benefits

• Foster re-use of CPU models across various simulation frameworks and reduces repetitive adaptation work

System Requirements

• CMake, version 3.6 or higher
• gcc and g++

How to build

Platform independent

• Clone the repository and cd into the repository

• Initialize and update the googletest submodule:

    git submodule init
    git submodule update
  

For Linux

• Create a BUILD directory

    mkdir BUILD
    cd BUILD
  

• Run CMake, then make to build both the test harness and the dummy core in x64 mode:

    CXX="g++ -m64" CC="gcc -m64" cmake ..             # on bash, or
    set CXX="g++ -m64"; set CC="gcc -m64";  cmake ..  # on csh 
    make
  

• As a sanity test, you can try and run the test harness against the dummy core integration. As this core integration does not actually implement any core behavior, only the most basic test is executed by the test target

    make test
  
    Start 1: smoke
    1/1 Test #1: smoke ............................   Passed    0.00 sec
  
    100% tests passed, 0 tests failed out of 1
  
    Total Test time (real) =   0.01 sec
  

For Windows Visual Studio 2017 and up

• Start Visual Studio

• Use File -> Open Folder... to open the directory to which you have cloned the ocx repository.

• Visual Studio will detect that this is a CMake project and will generate the necessary build files. Once this has completed ...

• Build -> Build all

• As a sanity test, you can try and run the test harness against the dummy core integration. As this core integration does not actually implement any core behavior, only the most basic test is executed by the test target

    Test -> Run CTest for ocx
  
    Start 1: smoke
    1/1 Test #1: smoke ............................   Passed    0.16 sec
    100% tests passed, 0 tests failed out of 1
    Total Test time (real) =   0.18 sec