The platform provides:

• An Armv8‑A cluster model containing 1-4 cores that implements:

  • Armv8.0, Armv8.1, Armv8.2, Armv8.3 and Armv8.4.

  • AArch64 at all Exception levels.

  • AArch32 support at EL0 and EL1.
  • Little and big endian at all Exception levels.
  • Generic timers.
  • Self-hosted debug.
  • GICv2 and GICv3 memory-mapped processor interfaces and distributor.

• 8GB of RAM.

  Note:

  The platform simulates up to 8GB of RAM.

  To simulate a system with 4GB of RAM, you require a host with at least 8GB of RAM.

  To simulate a system with 8GB of RAM, you require a host with at least 12GB of RAM.

• Four PL011 UARTs connected to xterms.

• Platform peripherals including a Real-time clock, Watchdog timer, Real-time timer, and Power controller.
• Secure peripherals including a Trusted watchdog, Random number generator, Non-volatile counters, and Root-key storage.
• A network device model that is connected to host network resources.
• A block storage device that is implemented as a file on the host.
• A small system register block with LEDs and switches visible using a web server.
• Host filesystem access that is implemented as Plan 9 filesystem.
• A CLCD that allows GUI visualization.
• Debug capabilities through the use of a CADI server.
• Support for the Armv8‑A Scalable Vector Extension (SVE).

Caches are modeled as stateless and there are no write buffers. This gives the effect of perfect memory coherence on the data side. The instruction side has a variable size prefetch buffer so requires correct barriers to be used in target code to operate correctly.

The platform runs as fast as possible unless all the cores in the cluster are Wait for Interrupt (WFI) or Wait for Exception (WFE). In the case of WFE, the platform idles until an interrupt or external event occurs.

The Foundation Platform has been revised to support the Arm Trusted Base System Architecture (TBSA) and Server Base System Architecture (SBSA). Several peripheral devices have been added, with corresponding changes to the memory map. It has also been updated to align more closely with peripherals present in the Versatile™ Express baseboard and the Arm Fast Models.

Software that is written to target the previous versions of the platform work unmodified on the platform by using the --no-gicv3 configuration option. Only software that uses the early blocks of RAM is likely to require some adjustments.

The platform provides the following types of network support:

NAT, IPv4 based

NAT, IPv4-based networking provides limited IP connectivity by using user-level IP services. This requires no extra privileges to set up or use, but has inherent limitations. System-level services, or services conflicting with those services on the host, can be provided using port remapping.

Bridged

Bridged networking requires the setup of an ethernet bridge device to bridge between the ethernet port on the host and the network interface that the platform provides. This usually requires administrator privileges. See the documentation in the Linux bridge-utils package for more information.

The Armv8‑A Foundation Platform uses Arm Fast Models technology and forms part of a comprehensive suite of modeling solutions for Arm processors. These modeling solutions are available in the portfolio of models that are delivered through the Arm Fast Models product. For more information, see the Fast Models User Guide.