Implementation of a simple emulator platform with limited resources

The implementation of a simple hardware emulator platform using limited resources is presented in this paper. The emulator platform consists of an evaluation board based around ARM processor core and a starter kit loaded with an FPGA chip, and uses tools from open-source software. The software part of the emulator is executed by ARM processor after being loaded into SRAM on evaluation board, and hardware part of it is implemented on FPGA chip on starter kit. The data transfer between ARM processor and hardware module on FPGA chip is carried out through the RS-232 serial port of each board. The evaluation board and host PC are connected by serial cable for debugging using arm-elf-gdb and on-board debugger of evaluation board. Starter kit and host PC are connected by JTAG cable for bitstream of hardware module to be programmed into FPGA chip. Although the emulator platform is constructed with limited budget combining elementary evaluation board, starter kit, and tools readily available from open source, it could be adopted to emulate various kinds of moderate size tasks.