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Virtual Platforms as a Foundation for Modern Embedded Development

Modern embedded software development is no longer limited to writing code and waiting for a physical target. As engineering teams adopt CI/CD pipelines, distributed development, and parallel hardware-software workflows, virtual platforms have become an increasingly important part of the embedded software lifecycle.   Rather than simply replacing physical hardware, virtual platforms allow software bring-up, debugging, regression testing, and continuous validation to begin earlier while providing a repeatable and scalable execution environment.   At the core of these solutions is Arm Fast Models, the simulation technology used to build functionally accurate virtual representations of Arm-based systems. Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) are ready-to-run virtual systems built using Fast Models, providing software developers with complete simulation environments for debugging and software bring-up. Arm Virtual Hardware (AVH) builds upon these virtual platforms by integrating them into a broader ecosystem that supports cloud execution, CI/CD pipelines, automation, and scalable software validation.   For Cortex-M software development, Arm Virtual Hardware, available with Keil MDK Professional, enables engineering teams to execute software in virtual environments without relying on physical evaluation boards. Instead of maintaining dedicated hardware for every developer or CI server, teams can automatically build, execute, and validate firmware locally or in cloud-based pipelines. This allows more frequent regression testing, faster feedback on every code change, and better utilization of engineering resources while reducing dependence on shared development hardware.   For more complex Cortex-A, Cortex-R, and system-level software development, Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) available with Arm Development Studio provide functionally accurate models for software bring-up and interactive debugging. Developers can inspect memory, debug drivers, validate boot sequences, and analyze software behavior using familiar Arm Development Studio tools, allowing much of the early integration effort to begin in a virtual environment before transitioning to physical validation.   Although they are often mentioned together, AVH and FVPs are designed for different purposes. FVPs provide the virtual targets that developers use for software development and debugging, while AVH extends those capabilities into a scalable development ecosystem by integrating virtual targets with cloud infrastructure, DevOps workflows, and CI/CD automation. Rather than competing technologies, they complement one another one focuses on interactive software development, while the other enables automated software validation at scale.   While Arm Development Studio includes a broad range of pre-built FVPs, organizations developing custom silicon can use the Arm Fast Models Library and System Generator (SG_Simulator) to create platform-specific virtual models, allowing software bring-up and validation to begin on architectures that do not yet exist as standard reference platforms.   As embedded systems continue to increase in complexity, virtual platforms are becoming more than just simulation tools. They are helping engineering teams improve software quality, increase testing frequency, reduce hardware dependencies, and build modern embedded development workflows that scale from a developer's desktop to enterprise CI/CD environments.   Interested in learning more about Arm Virtual Hardware, Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs), or Arm Development Studio? Contact Hrutik Champaneri at hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com.   Watch our Arm Virtual Hardware video here

QA-MISRA 26.04: Faster Analysis, Smarter Reporting, Greater Flexibility

The new release delivers significant improvements in performance, reporting accuracy, and workflow flexibility for teams developing safety- and business-critical software. It introduces ...

Cantata 26.04: Bringing AI-Assisted Testing into the Verification Workflow

The new release introduces new AI-assisted testing capabilities, enhanced automation, and greater flexibility for teams developing safety-critical C and C++ software. Highlights include...

Why AI May Have a Bigger Impact on Embedded Verification Than Embedded Development

Much of the discussion surrounding AI in embedded systems has focused on one question: Can AI write embedded software? While AI assisted code generation continues to evolve, many engineering organizations are discovering that AI's greatest opportunity may lie elsewhere in reducing the growing effort associated with software verification.   In modern embedded projects, activities such as requirements analysis, test development, traceability management, coverage analysis, and compliance verification can consume 50–70% of the overall software development effort. As products become more complex and schedules become tighter, improving verification efficiency has become just as important as accelerating software development.   Rather than replacing embedded engineers, AI is helping teams automate repetitive tasks so they can spend more time solving engineering problems.   One of the earliest opportunities for AI is during requirements analysis. Large embedded projects often contain hundreds or even thousands of requirements that must be reviewed for ambiguity, consistency, completeness, and traceability. Instead of starting with a manual review, teams can use Developair to automatically identify ambiguous wording, inconsistent terminology, missing acceptance criteria, and traceability gaps. Engineers remain in control, while AI provides a valuable first pass that allows reviews to focus on engineering decisions rather than document cleanup.   Verification effort continues to increase once software reaches testing. Creating and maintaining unit tests, measuring coverage, and updating regression suites after requirement changes can quickly become one of the most time consuming phases of development. AI can help generate an initial set of test scenarios directly from the requirements, which can then be imported into Cantata for execution, refinement, and automated regression testing. Instead of starting from scratch, teams begin with a solid baseline that can be expanded and validated using statement, branch, and MC/DC coverage. Depending on project complexity and process maturity, automating parts of this workflow can reduce verification effort by 20–40% while improving consistency across the test suite.   AI generated code and tests still require engineering validation. Rather than replacing established verification practices, AI is becoming another tool within the embedded workflow helping engineers improve traceability, reduce repetitive effort, and deliver higher-quality software with greater confidence.   Interested in modernizing your embedded software verification workflow? Contact Hrutik Champaneri at hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com to learn more and reserve your spot for our upcoming DevelopAIR and Cantata webinar.   Watch the video below to explore the AI features available in Cantata and the tasks you can accomplish using Claude AI.  

Shift-Left Embedded Software Quality: Finding Defects Before Testing

In embedded software development, defects discovered during integration, system testing, or field validation often become significantly more expensive to resolve than those identified during implementation. Industry studies suggest that fixing defects late in the development lifecycle can cost 10 to 100 times more than addressing them earlier, resulting in increased debugging effort, delayed releases, and higher project risk.   Unlike traditional software applications, embedded systems introduce additional complexity through hardware interactions, real-time constraints, communication protocols, and safety requirements. For example, a runtime defect identified during hardware integration may require extensive debugging across software, drivers, and target hardware, whereas the same issue discovered during development can often be resolved much more efficiently.   This is why many engineering organizations are adopting a shift-left approach to software quality. Shift-left development focuses on moving verification activities earlier in the development process, allowing teams to identify and resolve issues before they reach integration and system validation stages.   A practical shift-left strategy for embedded software combines coding standards enforcement, static analysis, and automated unit testing.   Using QA·MISRA, development teams can automatically enforce MISRA coding guidelines during implementation, helping improve code quality and reduce reliance on manual code reviews.   With Astrée, engineers can perform deep static analysis to identify potential runtime issues such as arithmetic overflows, invalid memory accesses, and uninitialized variables without requiring execution on target hardware.   Finally, Cantata enables automated unit testing, code coverage analysis, and early validation of software behavior before full system integration begins.   A modern embedded verification workflow may therefore follow this sequence:   Develop → QA MISRA → Astrée → Cantata → Integration Testing → System Testing   By introducing verification activities earlier in the development lifecycle, embedded teams can reduce defect escape rates, shorten debugging cycles, improve software reliability, and increase confidence in project schedules and product releases. Rather than treating quality as a final-stage activity, shift-left development transforms software verification into a continuous engineering practice.   To learn more about our embedded software quality solutions, please contact Hrutik Champaneri at hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com   Register HERE for our upcoming webinar to see Astrée static analysis integrated directly into Visual Studio Code.

VS Code and the Modern Embedded Workflow

Visual Studio Code has become a preferred development environment for many embedded software teams thanks to its flexibility, lightweight design, and extensive extension ecosystem. However, as embedded projects grow in complexity, writing code is only part of the challenge. Teams must also ensure software quality, compliance, test coverage, and verification while still meeting aggressive release schedules. The challenge is that many of these activities are still performed later in the development lifecycle, where defects become significantly more expensive to resolve. Industry studies have shown that software defects discovered during integration or system testing can cost up to 10x more to fix than those identified during development. For this reason, many organizations are shifting verification activities earlier in the software lifecycle to reduce project risk, improve quality, and avoid costly rework. Rather than forcing developers to abandon their preferred development environment, a modern VS Code-based workflow allows quality and verification activities to be integrated directly into day-to-day development. Developers can use Keil MDK to build and debug Arm Cortex-M applications while continuing to work within a familiar VS Code environment. Powered by Arm Compiler and the CMSIS ecosystem, Keil MDK provides optimized code generation, comprehensive device support, and advanced debugging capabilities specifically designed for Arm-based systems. This enables teams to accelerate development while building on a trusted toolchain widely used across safety, industrial, automotive, and IoT applications. Coding standards compliance is often another source of engineering effort, particularly for projects operating under safety, security, or regulatory requirements. QA MISRA helps identify coding standard violations as code is written, allowing issues to be corrected before formal reviews begin. Organizations that introduce coding standards verification earlier in development often report reduced review effort, improved code consistency, and fewer compliance related surprises during audits and certification activities. With the QA·MISRA extension integrated directly into VS Code, developers can identify violations and receive feedback within the editor, helping them address issues before they become larger development or compliance challenges. Static analysis provides another opportunity to identify defects before they become schedule impacting problems. AbsInt Astrée analysis tools help detect runtime anomalies, stack usage concerns, and software defects before code reaches target hardware. Finding issues during development rather than during integration testing can substantially reduce debugging effort while improving software reliability and reducing verification risk. Similar to QA MISRA, Astrée integrates with VS Code and highlights analysis results directly within the development environment, enabling engineers to identify and resolve issues earlier in the software lifecycle. Verification through testing remains equally important. QA Systems Cantata enables automated unit and integration testing for C and C++ applications, helping teams continuously verify functionality throughout development. Studies have shown that automated testing can reduce manual test execution effort by 30–50% while improving repeatability, coverage, and traceability. For organizations operating in regulated industries, automated testing also helps generate evidence required for standards such as ISO 26262, IEC 61508, IEC 62304, and DO-178C. With Cantata's VS Code integration, developers can generate test cases, execute tests, and review code coverage directly within their development environment, helping teams build quality into the software lifecycle from the start. Modern development workflows increasingly rely on CI/CD pipelines to improve efficiency, consistency, and software quality. VS Code integrates seamlessly with source control and automation platforms, making it easier to manage branches, reviews, builds, testing, and deployments. When combined with tools such as Keil MDK, QA·MISRA, AbsInt, and Cantata, teams can automate quality checks, compliance verification, static analysis, compilation, and testing throughout the development lifecycle. This unified workflow improves traceability, strengthens collaboration between development and quality teams, and helps identify issues earlier, reducing the risk of costly late-stage defects while providing greater confidence that software meets quality, security, and compliance requirements before release.   Together, VS Code, Keil MDK, QA MISRA, AbsInt, and Cantata support multiple stages of the embedded software V-model from implementation and debugging through compliance, static analysis, testing, and verification. The result is not simply better tooling, but a more predictable development process, fewer escaped defects, reduced rework, and higher confidence in software quality before release. Interested in learning how these tools can fit into your development workflow? Reach out to Hrutik Champaneri at hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com to discuss your project requirements, compliance goals, or embedded software development challenges.   Explore our VS Code Ecosystem page to discover tools for embedded development, static analysis, MISRA compliance, automated testing, and CI/CD integration, all within a modern VS Code workflow.  

Virtual Hardware for Modern Embedded Software Workflows

Embedded Software development has traditionally relied on access to physical hardware. While development boards and prototype remain essential, they can also create bottlenecks when hardware availability is limited, teams are distributed across locations, or multiple engineers need access to same platform. These challenges can slow development, testing, and debugging activities, particularly during the early stages of project when rapid iteration is critical.    Virtual hardware platforms are helping engineering teams overcome many of these challenges by providing software-accessible representations of physical devices. Solutions such as Arm Virtual Hardware (AVH) allow developers to begin software development, testing, and validation before physical hardware is available. By enabling scalable, cloud-based execution environments, virtual platforms support modern development practices such as continuous integration, automated testing, and remote collaboration while reducing dependence on limited hardware resources.   Corellium builds on the concept of virtual hardware by providing Arm-based virtual platforms that support embedded software development, testing, debugging, and validation workflows. By giving developers on-demand access to virtual target platforms, teams can begin software development earlier and avoid delays caused by limited hardware availability. Virtual platforms can also simplify testing by making it easier to run repeatable test scenarios, perform regression testing, and integrate automated validation into CI/CD pipelines. Developers can currently explore supported platforms including Raspberry Pi 4, NXP i.MX 93, NXP i.MX 8M, and the STM32U5 IoT Discovery Kit, providing a practical way to evaluate virtual hardware workflows on widely used Arm-based devices. This flexibility allows development and testing activities to scale more easily while helping teams maintain consistency across projects and locations.      As embedded systems continue to grow in complexity, development teams are looking for ways to improve efficiency without compromising quality. Virtual hardware is increasingly becoming a valuable complement to physical devices, helping teams start software development sooner, test more effectively, and support distributed engineering workflows. Platforms such as Corellium make it possible to reduce dependence on hardware availability, allowing engineers to spend more time developing and validating software and less time waiting for access to target platforms.     Published by Hrutik Champaneri | Joral TechnologiesFor more information about Corellium and virtual hardware solutions, contact hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com   Learn how virtual hardware can accelerate embedded software development in our on-demand webinar:

AI-Powered Verification for Embedded Software: Reducing Testing Effort by 50%

For many embedded software teams, writing code is no longer the biggest challenge. Verification, validation, traceability, compliance, and maintaining test cases often consume more engineering effort than development itself. As systems become more complex and standards such as ISO 26262, DO-178C, IEC 61508, and EN 50128 grow increasingly demanding, verification activities can account for up to 50% of overall development effort in safety-critical projects.   This is where Developair takes a different approach. Using AI-assisted verification and validation, Developair helps teams standardize requirements, address gaps, establish traceability, and automatically generate test artifacts. By reducing repetitive manual tasks, engineering teams can improve coverage, maintain consistency, and spend less time managing tests and documentation.   Working directly from requirements and specifications, Developair connects requirements, test cases, and verification activities into a streamlined workflow. This helps reduce the risk of missed coverage, simplifies compliance efforts, and accelerates development cycles. For organizations looking to improve software quality while reducing verification costs, AI-assisted validation provides a practical and scalable path forward.   As embedded systems continue to evolve, verification is becoming one of the largest bottlenecks in software development. Tools from Developair are helping organizations modernize this process by bringing automation, intelligence, and scalability to activities that have traditionally required extensive manual effort. Interested in learning how Developair can support your verification and validation workflow?   Know More About Developair Solutions   Learn more about Developair and how AI-powered verification and validation can support your development process. To learn more, contact hrutik.champaneri@joraltechnologies.com.    Check Out a Demo Video of the Tool Below

Understanding KEIL MDK User-Based Licensing (UBL) and Its Benefits

Perpetual licenses have been a trusted option for Keil MDK users for many years. However, as development environments become more connected and automated, Keil MDK User-Based Licensing (UBL) offers additional flexibility for modern development teams.   Why consider UBL?   User-based access – Licenses are assigned to users rather than individual machines, making it easier to work across multiple approved systems.   Supports modern development workflows – Integrates well with CI/CD pipelines, automated build environments, and distributed development teams using Keil MDK.   Designed for VS Code and modern IDE workflows – Enables engineers to take advantage of today's development ecosystem, including VS Code extensions, AI-assisted coding tools, and productivity-enhancing integrations while continuing to use Keil development tools.   Simplified license management – Provides administrators with greater visibility and control over license allocation and usage across engineering teams.   Access to the latest Arm tools – Includes current Arm development tools such as Arm Compiler for Embedded (Arm Compiler 6), along with ongoing updates and enhancements.   Legacy toolchain support – UBL Professional also provides access to older Arm toolchains when maintaining existing products and long-term projects.   Perpetual licenses remain a valid option for many projects, but for organizations adopting modern development practices, Keil MDK UBL offers a flexible licensing model aligned with today's engineering workflows.   Get Started with Keil MDK UBL