Arm announces RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33 emulator as the first SystemReady VE (SR) certification

The Arm SystemReady compliance certification program has reached a new milestone with the SystemReady VE (SR) certification of the Arm Neoverse N2 reference design (RD-N2) FVP 11.17.33 platform. This is the first SystemReady VE (SR) certification, and the first system that is certified with SBSA level 6.

Arm introduced the SystemReady program during Arm DevSummit in October 2020 to a broad set of partners. This was enabled after a decade of ecosystem development of the standards-based hardware and firmware requirements specification and implementations. This balanced approach to standards enables interoperability for ease of wide scale deployment and true innovations on top. The Arm SystemReady program provides a formal set of compute platform definitions to cover a range of systems from the cloud to edge including IoT. In May 2022, this program expanded to virtual environments like emulators, desktop virtualization software, and cloud instances by introducing the SystemReady VE certification. This helps software 'just work' seamlessly across a vibrant, diverse ecosystem of Arm-based compute including the virtual environments.

Arm Neoverse N2 reference design (RD-N2) Fixed Virtual Platform (FVP)

Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) are very accurate and realistic Arm IP models that emulate the work of a complete Arm-based system to enable software development and testing without the need for real hardware. It allows partners to evaluate and develop at SoC level even before the hardware is ready.

Arm Neoverse N2 is the first Armv9 infrastructure CPU and is targeted at 5G, networking, SmartNICs, edge deployments, and hyperscale data centers. It allows partners to scale from edge systems with low core-count to cloud solutions with dense racks containing 128+ cores.

RD-N2 FVP is the FVP for partners to develop software for the physical system that is based on the Arm Neoverse N2 based SoC, which models much of the Arm IP in Arm Neoverse N2 reference design (RD-N2).

SystemReady VE (SR)

SystemReady Virtual Environment (VE) is designed for the certification of virtual environments that can demonstrate the same software “just works” user experience as other SystemReady certifications. A virtual environment can be certified with SystemReady VE to correspond to an equivalent SystemReady band, such as SR or ES, if its virtualized hardware and firmware environment meet the bands’ requirements. In this case, RD-N2 FVP meets SystemReady SR requirements, so it is certified with SystemReady VE (SR).

Summary

Today we are announcing another milestone under the Arm SystemReady program, the first SystemReady VE (SR) certification - the RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33, which enables:

• To fully experience “Software just works” on software and firmware development and evaluation on RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33 before getting their physical system that is based on Arm Neoverse N2 based SoC. This saves the cost of building or getting the systems for engineers and time spent on waiting for the availability of the physical system.   
• Partners can use RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33 to run generic off-the-shelf operating systems such as Windows, Linux, and BSD distros, out of the box, with no need to patch.
• Hardware designers can do early architecture exploration and build proof-of-concepts. Verification engineers can scope out the software needs for pre-silicon BSA/SBSA compliance testing.

So far all SystemReady SR certified physical systems are compliant with the SBSA levels 4 or lower. RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33 emulator complies with SBSA level 6, and partners can use it to develop software for some advanced server features. For example, cryptography support for SHA3 and SHA512, enhanced nested virtualization, and Armv8 RAS extension, that are covered by SBSA level 5 and 6. It provides the best reference environment for partners wanting to build a SoC and system that take advantage of these features and want to be certified at SBSA Level 6.

To find more about RD-N2 FVP 11.17.33 certification on the SystemReady VE webpage. 

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