Add-on simulation packages for the KEIL IDE

Abstract

Nearly every student following an embedded systems credit will almost certainly need to debug his project before loading it onto a development board. Unfortunately debugging will only tell you what's going on inside the processor and its ports but not how the peripherals connected to the processor are behaving. This thesis describes a pilot project that is aimed at discovering the methods used by the KEIL uVision IDE to implement simulations of peripherals that connect to a processor to allow developers to see how a peripheral reacts to a processors command while debugging and thus avoiding the need to have the actual hardware available. The knowledge gained from this project is intended to act as an aid for future students and/or professors who implement custom peripherals simulations before trying the code on the 'real thing'. This project therefore involves the familiarization of the Advanced Generic Simulation Interface (AGSI) within the KEIL uVision IDE that interfaces with a custom simulation and to make all knowledge gained available and accessible to any future student/lecturer who wishes to use this feature. Most of the research involved in this project revolved around the understanding of the operation of the AGSI that is described in a paper provided by KEIL under the heading of "Implementing uVision DLL's for Advanced Generic Simulator Interface Application Note 151'. Three custom simulations were developed and annotated so as to put all knowledge gained to use. A template and other aids were also developed so as to allow any future developers to concentrate on developing the simulation rather than developing the AGSI interface to the simulation. The peripherals chosen to be implemented for this pilot project are the switch and lamp unit from Flite Electronics, a generic Hex keyboard and an LCD with a Samsung KS0066U driver, all of which are used extensively during the lecturing of the rnicrocontroller course within the CCE department at the University of Malta. Interface development was done using rapid prototyping while the simulations were designed and developed using a bottom-up technique in conjunction with the waterfall method.