Simulating with Spike

Freedom E SDK comes with a target for simulating the RISC-V ISA with Spike:

• spike

Building for Spike

Compiling a bare-metal RISC-V program for Spike is much the same as any other target in Freedom E SDK

make TARGET=spike PROGRAM=hello CONFIGURATION=debug software

One can choose to replace the hello PROGRAM with any other examples, like timer-interrupt example, and the debug build CONFIGRATION with the release for an optimize build configuration.

make PROGRAM=timer-interrupt TARGET=spike CONFIGURATION=release software

Changing the Spike Simulation Target

Spike accepts various options to configure the simulation target, like ISA, the number of harts, and more. You can configure these options by editing bsp/spike/spike_options.sh and adding your options to the exported SPIKE_OPTIONS variable.

Editing these options usually requires regenerating the BSP files using freedom-devicetree-tools, so if you edit SPIKE_OPTIONS, make sure that the freedom-devicetree-tools submodule has been built and its output binaries are in your PATH.

Running in Spike Simulation

With the Spike simulator in your PATH, running a program in spike is as easy as invoking the simulate make target:

make TARGET=spike PROGRAM=hello CONFIGURATION=debug simulate

Cleaning a Target Program Build Directory

The clean target can be used to restore a target program’s directory to a clean state.

make TARGET=spike PROGRAM=hello CONFIGURATION=debug clean