Apparatus and method for in-circuit emulation using a high-level programming language

摘要

An in-circuit emulation method is provided which comprises an emulator, a host computer, and a target system, where the host computer compiles a software model of a target chip to a compiled code downloaded to the emulator that interacts with the target system by executing the compiled code. Specifically, the software model of target chip is described in a high-level programming language. The emulator includes two functional modules, a processing engine and a pin signal generator (PSG). The processing engine executes the compiled code and the PSG interacts with the target system after the PSG is configured as a number of functional blocks. Specifically, at least one of the functional blocks is configured in accordance with an external interface model in order to interact with the target system. A software conversion method is also provided which includes the steps of identifying I/O variables and translating them to the corresponding I/O functions.