ABSTRACT
Simulation and testing have specific goals. For simulation, people want to facilitate requirements derivation, uncover unknown design interactions and details, and reduce development costs by requiring fewer actual parts. Wedding simulation with automated testing allows test organizations to achieve benefits such as increases in testing speed, increases in test coverage for both hardware and software, and the ability to test before hardware becomes available. System simulation not only facilitates requirements generation/derivation and definition of the end product, but it can also be used to replicate the entire system and serve as a test function. The best known of the electrical simulators for small circuits is Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis, which is designed for analog electrical circuits. Simulation of particular functions can be performed via the hardware-in-the-loop simulator. Functional simulations are typically used to provide a tool for gathering requirements.
