The IAR C-SPY Simulator
The C-SPY simulator simulates the functions of the target processor entirely in software, which means that you can debug the program logic long before any hardware is available. Because no hardware is required, it is also the most cost-effective solution for many applications.
Two simulator drivers
The C-SPY simulator uses one of two debugger drivers. Which driver depends on which core or device you have selected for your application project. For some cores and devices, the C-SPY simulator uses the IAR C-SPY simulator driver, a feature-rich debugger driver. For other cores and devices, the C-SPY Simulator uses the Imperas Instruction Set Simulator, a very fast debugger driver. Both simulators are fully integrated into the C-SPY framework.
You can see which simulator driver that C-SPY is using by inspecting the debug log. When the Imperas Instruction Set Simulator is used, a copyright statement from Imperas Software Ltd is printed to the log. If there is no such statement, C-SPY uses the IAR C-SPY simulator driver.
Supported features
The C-SPY simulator supports:
Instruction-level simulation
Memory configuration and validation
Interrupt simulation (not supported by the Imperas driver)
Peripheral simulation (using the C-SPY macro system in conjunction with immediate breakpoints).
Simulating hardware instead of using a hardware debugging system means that some limitations do not apply, but that there are other limitations instead. For example:
You can set an unlimited number of breakpoints in the simulator.
When you stop executing your application, time actually stops in the simulator. When you stop application execution on a hardware debugging system, there might still be activities in the system. For example, peripheral units might still be active and reading from or writing to SFR ports.
Application execution is significantly much slower in a simulator compared to when using a hardware debugging system. However, during a debug session, this might not necessarily be a problem.
The simulator is not cycle accurate.
Peripheral simulation is limited in the C-SPY Simulator and therefore the simulator is suitable mostly for debugging code that does not interact too much with peripheral units.