Template:KS2 SoftwareDesignDevelopmentPlatforms

Procure Hardware Development Platforms & Emulation Tools
Hardware Development Platforms are designed, developed, and tested by 3rd Party Design Houses in order to provide the software architect team with the ability to develop their code in parallel with the hardware design of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB). Hardware Development platforms are preferable vs simulators because they actually reflect how the device will behave in the end product and take into account system latencies for cache misses and off chip memory accesses.

IDE tools normally provide options for developing directly on a hardware platform or indirectly in a software simulator if a hardware platform is not available. When developing directly on a hardware platform, the IDE must have some way of connecting and communicating with the hardware; this communication path is often provided via
 * ARM and DSP based JTAG emulators: Often the only option for debugging boot code before any kernel level code is available
 * USB, UART, Ethernet: this options are often available for debugging GPP procesors such as ARM and are often the least expensive route and adopted by many developers particularly in the application space, but also used to develop and debug kernel space.

66AK2H has TI XDS2xx Mezzanine emulator through USB connection.