Are Simics and VxWorks Simulator the same thing?

Question

During development with Wind River Workbench, I use VxWorks Simulator to test code. I also heard of Simics is a virtual environment which can run VxWorks. Are Simics and VxWorks Simulator the same thing?

Answer 1

They are 2 different products.

VxSim is bundled with the vxWorks development environment and provides a simple x86 virtual board with memory, a serial port and possibly a network connection. You can not simulate real devices like A/D, PCI devices, etc... in vxSim

Simics in comparison is an actual system simulation environment, where an entire hardware platform is emulated, including CPU, hardware devices (PCI bus, A/D converters, FPGA, etc...) and it can run the exact same binary as the real board would.

Simics is also not restricted to vxWorks. A simics simulation could run any software: Windows, Linux, other OSes.

Answer 2

I agree with Benoit and would like to add that. Simics simulates how a complete system works, which often in one simulation may includes mixed technologies: multiple boards running multiple OS including VxWorks or Linux. They can connect within Simics virtual ethernet network and exchange data packets.

VxSim is much more straight forward, which only emulate one instant of VxWorks running.