Hardware emulation uses RTL and SystemC models for execution. A regular application and HLS-based kernel developer does not need to be aware of the hardware level details. The Vitis analyzer provides sufficient details of the hardware execution model. However, for advanced users who are familiar with HW signal and protocols, they can launch hardware emulation with the simulator waveform running, as described in Waveform View and Live Waveform Viewer.
By default, when running v++ --link -t
hw_emu, the tool compiles the simulation models in optimized mode. However,
when you also specify the -g switch, you enable
hardware emulation models to be compiled in debug mode. During the application runtime,
use the -g switch with the launch_hw_emu.sh command to run the simulator interactively in GUI mode
with waveforms displayed. By default, the hardware emulation flow adds common signals of
interest to the waveform window. However, you can pause the simulator to add signals of
interest and resume simulation.