METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR OPTIMIZING HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE CO-SIMULATION

In accordance to a first aspect of the present invention, co-simulation of a hardware-software system is performed with a single coherent view of the memory of the hardware-software system. This single coherent view is transparently maintained for both the hardware and software simulations, and includes at least one segment of the memory being viewed as configured for having selected portions of the segment to be statically or dynamically configured/reconfigured for either unoptimized or optimized accesses, wherein unoptimized accesses are performed through hardware simulation, and optimized accesses are performed "directly", by-passing hardware simulation. In accordance to a second aspect of the present invention, co-simulation of a hardware-software system is performed with or without simulation time optimization, statically or dynamically configured/reconfigured, and optionally in accordance to a desired clock cycle ratio between hardware and software simulations, also statically or dynamically configured/reconfigured.