C51 Development Tools

Why You Need A Simulator

We agree that you can probably create, test, and debug your embedded applications without a simulator. However, there are several reasons why a simulator (like the µVision Debugger) can make your engineering tasks easier and save you lots of development time.

• Customers with the simulator spend less time debugging simple program errors. The simulator lets them learn about things like on-chip peripherals and addressing modes without designing real hardware.
• It is our experience that customers who have a simulator require LESS technical support and are able to get up-to-speed with the tools faster. The simulator makes it easy to write and test code and learn about programming your microcontroller.
• The µVision Debugger provides complete simulation support for on-chip peripherals like PWM, Power saving modes, A/D, Serial I/O, and so on.
• It is easier for our support engineers to explain complex problems if you have a simulator.
• It is easier to discover if a problem is in the hardware or software when you use a simulator. For example, if the application works in the simulator and if it works in the emulator, there's most likely a problem with the target hardware.
• The simulator requires no setup time. An emulator may require configuration and a target board before you can debug.

The simulator is not a replacement for an emulator.  A simulator is a different tool entirely.  While an emulator allows you to debug software running on your target hardware, a simulator allows you to debug your software as well as your understanding of the microcontroller and the programming language.  There are no real-time debugging effects of a simulator.

For debugging embedded applications, we have a general list of favorite tools that we use in-house.

• Logic Probe
• Digital Multi-Meter
• High-speed Analog Oscilloscope
• High-speed Digital Storage Oscilloscope
• Logic Analyzer (with a disassembly pod)
• Emulator
• Software Simulator

It is always a difficult trade-off when deciding what you need. However, a simulator is relatively inexpensive and has a great utility value for the price.