Emulation

Emulation runs the platform in Renode using fast functional models of the CPU and peripherals - no RTL is involved. It boots a firmware image in a fraction of a second and runs at near real-time, which makes it the tool of choice for software bring-up and rapid iteration.

The functional peripheral models live in Nafarr next to their SpinalHDL sources (*.cs files alongside the *.scala); the platform wiring is described by hardware/scala/<soc>/<soc>_emul.repl and the boot script <soc>_emul.resc.

Running

Boot the platform’s firmware image headless (console in the terminal):

task emulate SOC=ElemRV-H TARGET=SG13CMOS5L

To launch the full Renode GUI (monitor window plus peripheral analyzers, e.g. an LED widget):

task emulate-gui SOC=ElemRV-H TARGET=SG13CMOS5L

The firmware image is taken from build/<SOC>/firmware/ - build it with the Firmware Flow flow first.

Console and I/O

UART0 is exposed both as a Renode analyzer window (GUI) and as a TCP socket on port 3456, which podman-compose publishes to the host. Connect from the host with:

telnet localhost 3456

Typing into either endpoint feeds the UART receiver. GPIO output changes are written to the Renode log, so pin activity is visible even without the GUI.

When to use

  • Day-to-day firmware development and debugging (GDB, scripting, fast reboots).

  • Bring-up that does not depend on exact hardware timing.

Because the peripherals are hand-written functional models, behaviour is only as accurate as the model. To run software against the real peripheral RTL while keeping this speed, use Co-simulation; for full cycle accuracy use RTL Simulation.