Reusing AI Engine Simulator Options - 2024.1 English

AI Engine Tools and Flows User Guide (UG1076)
Document ID
UG1076
Release Date
2024-06-27
Version
2024.1 English

The AI Engine simulator generates an options file that lists the options used for simulating the AI Engine graph application. The options file is automatically generated when the AI Engine simulator is run. You can reuse the AI Engine simulator options from the initial graph-level simulation later in the system-level hardware emulation. You can also manually edit the options file to specify other options as required. The following table lists the options that can be specified in the aiesim_options.txt file. This file is located in the aiesimulator_output directory and is created if the --dump-vcd option is used with the aiesimulator command. This file can be specified as part of the command line option to launch the hardware emulator using the launch_hw_emu.sh script as described in Performance Analysis of AI Engine Graph Application on Hardware. An example command line is as follows.

./launch_hw_emu.sh \
-aie-sim-options ${FULL_PATH}/aiesimulator_output/aiesim_options.txt

where ${FULL_PATH} must be the full path to the file or directory.

Table 1. AI Engine Options for Hardware Emulation
Command Arguments Description
AIE_DUMP_VCD <filename> When AIE_DUMP_VCD is specified, the simulation generates VCD data and writes it to the specified <filename>.vcd. For more information about the options used to generate select signals associated with specific modules, see Generating VCD with Select Signals.
AIE_DEBUG_AXIMM True | False When AIE_DEBUG_AXIMM is enabled (True), simulation generates memory-mapped AXI4 transaction data and writes it to a aiesim_debug_axi_mm_dump.txt file.
AIE_PKG_DIR /path_to_work_dir/Work This is a mandatory option that sets the path to the Work directory generated by the AI Engine compiler. If you do not specify this option, the generated sim/behav_waveform/xsim/default.aierun_summary file will not have the correct Work directory setting, which will impact the display of the summary file in the Vitis analyzer.
Note: Any command that has a path to a file must use an absolute path.

When creating a simulation option file manually it needs to follow the format of COMMAND=ARGUMENT, with each command being on a separate line. The following example shows best practice.

AIE_DUMP_VCD=foo

To view the AMD Vivado™ simulator waveform GUI, use the launch_hw_emu script with -g option, and also use the -g option during the v++ --link stage as well. 

./launch_hw_emu.sh -g

Additionally, you can add more advanced options to log waveform data without having to launch emulation with the Vivado logic simulator GUI. An example command line is as follows.

./launch_hw_emu.sh \
-user-pre-sim-script pre-sim.tcl

The pre-sim.tcl contains Tcl commands to add waveforms or log design waveforms. For an example, see the Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393) and for Tcl commands see Vivado Design Suite User Guide: Logic Simulation (UG900).

Tip: Details on debugging the application in Hardware Emulation can be found in Debugging System Projects in Vitis Unified Software Platform Documentation: Application Acceleration Development (UG1393).

Viewing the Run Summary

After hardware emulation is launched and run with the above simulation options, the run summary is available as follows:

For AI Engine run summary generated inside <package_dir>/sim/behav_waveform/<simulator>/default.aierun_summary, the VCD file is generated at the same location, for example: <package_dir>/sim/behav_waveform/<simulator>/<vcd filename>.

Note: Viewing summary from the third-party simulator is also available.