Software Development Without a Hardware Target
Running at speeds comparable to the real hardware, Fixed Virtual platforms are complete simulations of an Arm system, including processor, memory and peripherals. These are set out in a "programmer's view", which gives you a comprehensive model on which to build and test your software.
Complete Arm System Simulation
Fixed Virtual Platforms give you a great way to start bare metal coding and Linux application development for Arm without the need for a physical target.
The complete Arm system model represented by FVPs is much more than just an instruction set simulator. With a processor, memory and other peripherals modelled within an FVP, you can get a good analog for how software will execute on the physical device.
Develop Ahead of Hardware Availability
With FVPs, your software engineering team can work on application, firmware and early driver development far ahead of hardware availability.
In cases where a large team is working on “generic” device support, models remove the need for a large number of hardware targets. For newer technologies such as big.LITTLE, this can also be very useful.