ENHANCED PROGRAMMABLE CORE MODEL WITH INTEGRATED GRAPHICAL DEBUGGING FUNCTIONALITY

An apparatus, program product and method incorporate into an enhanced programmable core model an embedded debug monitor to provide integrated graphical debugging functionality in the model. The debug monitor supports the performance of one or more debug operations on the programmable core model during simulation thereof. In addition, the debug monitor is configured to receive a debug parameter from a user through a graphical user interface, and report a result of the debug operation to a user via the graphical user interface. Through the use of a graphical user interface, interaction with a user is greatly facilitated. Moreover, by embedding the debug monitor within the programmable core model, a completely integrated simulation and debug environment may be provided to a user, with debugging functionality similar to that available to software developers and hardware-based processor designers. As a result, validation of a model's performance can be performed more efficiently and with less effort.