Introduction

The AI Engine simulator (aiesimulator) models the timing and resources of the AI Engine array, while using transaction-level SystemC models for the NoC and double-data rate (DDR) memory. This allows for faster performance analysis of your AI Engine applications and accurate estimation of the AI Engine resource use with cycle-approximate timing information. This takes into account the hardware constraints, such as heap/stack sizes and proram memory size, for verifying the design and keeping track of those detailed timing information that makes the simulation slow and resource intensive.

The AI Engine simulator allows stepping through the AI Engine compiler-generated assembly code which aids in code optimization; however, source level visibility could be limited due to compiler optimization. This section discusses about some important features (listed below) that ease the debugging of the design at AIE Simulation level.

Before starting this tutorial:

• It is expected that you have run the steps to set the environment variables as described in Introduction.

• Create a system project manually using the steps mentioned in Port the Command Line project to the Vitis IDE System Project

• Open the Vitis IDE tool by typing vitis in the console, set the workspace, and the IDE opens. Click File->Import, select the Vitis exported project zip file, browse to the above zip file, and click Next. Enable the check box, System Projects, and click Finish.

Features

Build and Simulate in the Vitis IDE

1. From the left pane in the Vitis IDE, select the AI Engine Component, and expand to locate and select the aiecompiler.cfg file to open the compiler configuration settings.

2. Select the XLOpt settings and under the Kernel optimization setting, select the 0 - None from the drop-down. This gives greater visibility during the AI Engine debug.

3. Right-click the [aiengine] domain project, select C/C++ Build Settings, choose Miscellaneous -> Optimization -> from the drop down choose No Optimizations(xlopt=0). This option helps IDE debugging capability by disabling any kernel optimizations.

4. Now, in the Flow navigator window, select the Build option under AIE SIMULATOR/HARDWARE. This builds the AI Engine component for AIE Simulation target. Once the build completes, you see the Compilation Complete and Build Finished Successfully messages in the console and a green tick mark as highlighted below.

5. In the Flow navigator window, under AIE SIMULATION/HARDWARE, select the Run option. If there is no existing launch configuration, you need to create one by clicking Create Configuration -> New Launch Configuration -> AIESim.

6. You can change the Launch Config Name, and click the Run button to start the simulation for the AIE simulation target. When the simulation completes, the following output in the console is displayed.

7. Right-click the [aiengine] domain project, and select the Run As → Launch AIE Emulator option to start the simulation for the aiesimulation target. When the simulation completes, the following output in the console is displayed: