This chapter describes the various execution targets available to simulate your AI Engine applications at different levels of abstraction, accuracy, and speed. System C simulation (see AI Engine System C Simulator) models the timing and resources of the AI Engine array accurately, while using transaction-level, approximately timed System C models for NoC, DDR, PL, and PS. This allows reasonably accurate performance analysis of your AI Engine applications in a reasonable time.
Functional simulation, as described in x86 Functional Simulator (x86simulator), is the fastest simulation but does not provide timing, resource, or performance information. It can be used to functionally test your application, and is useful for early iterations in the design development.
As shown in Integrating the Application Using the Vitis Tools Flow and Using the Vitis IDE, the Vitis™ compiler builds the system-level project runs the simulator from the GUI. Alternatively, the options can be specified on a command line or in a script.