ARM Cycle-Accurate Simulator

Question

Is there a free and cycle-accurate ARM (Cortex A9) simulator out there?

I think ARM IDE is providing some sort of profiler but first I am not sure if it provides a command line interface and secondly it is not free. I was hoping to find something from GNU but I couldn't find any ...

the vendor logic surrounding the chip would play a big role in being cycle accurate (unless you are talking about jtag and not actually running any code), so you would need both the arm component (the cortex a9 and peripherals) and the vendor components. Unless you work for the vendor it is unlikely you will ever see this. If you give a vendor enough money they might build you a sim, it is much cheaper to just buy a chip. Any free tools that are cycle accurate are likely based on a violation of NDA protected information, and or the product is obsolete enough to not care (armulator). — old_timer, Apr 24 '13 at 20:13
See this question: [post process objdump](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/14942436/post-process-objdump-disassemble-with-arm-cycle-counts). In one answer [Marat Dunkan](http://stackoverflow.com/users/848177/marat-dukhan) refers to the [Fast models](http://www.arm.com/products/tools/models/fast-models/index.php) simulator. I think it is intended for people developing a **CPU** and is apparently quiet expensive? If the *Cortex-A9* has a cycle count register, then Pete's and Dwelch's suggestion to buy hardware seems reasonable; even if it doesn't, a timer and multiple runs can profile. — artless noise, Apr 24 '13 at 23:34

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 24 '13 at 18:33

4

There are no free cycle accurate simulators available for recent ARM cores. You best bet is to buy a Cortex A9 development board (like a Pandaboard) and use that for performance benchmarking.

answered Apr 24 '13 at 18:33

Pete Fordham

2,278
16
25

Or, He can try ARM DS-5 Evaluation kit. It has a cycle accurate simulator for most ARM cores. – sgupta Apr 27 '13 at 13:36
The RTSM models provided with DS-5 for A8 and A9 aren't cycle accurate. – Pete Fordham Apr 27 '13 at 19:42
Oh, Since it provided support for profiling, I assumed it must be cycle accurate. – sgupta Apr 28 '13 at 20:19

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 18 '16 at 04:22

With the acquisition of Carbon Design System ARM started offering cycle accurate models for its cores. These models are slow compared to fast models which are functionally accurate but not cycle accurate. For more details one can refer http://www.arm.com/products/tools/models/cycle-models.php

ARM Cycle-Accurate Simulator

2 Answers2

Linked