1. Purpose and scope
A virtual prototype runs software on a model; an emulator or FPGA prototype runs it on the design itself. In this stage the custom chip's design, or the system's own programmable logic, is compiled onto an emulator or onto FPGA prototyping boards and run fast enough to boot firmware and an operating system. Where the system uses only standard chips, the same role is played by development boards and evaluation kits wired to represent the system. In every case the aim is the same: bring up firmware and software on hardware that behaves like the final design, and verify hardware and software together against the system's use cases while design changes are still cheap.
Emulators and FPGA prototypes serve different needs. An emulator compiles quickly and gives deep visibility into every signal, so it suits debugging hardware and software together, but it runs far slower than the final hardware. An FPGA prototype runs much faster, close enough to real time to drive real interfaces, but takes longer to build and shows less of the design. Most programmes use both: emulation for early drops and hard bugs, FPGA prototypes for software bring-up and long tests.
In scope: the prototyping plan, prototype builds for each design drop, bring-up of boot code, firmware and the operating system, running the main use cases, hardware and software co-verification, correlation with the virtual prototype, and the integration plan for the first engineering prototypes. Out of scope: the chip's own functional verification sign-off, which belongs to the SoC lifecycle, and feature development, which continues in Software & Firmware Development.
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