Arm Fixed Virtual Platforms (FVPs) are fast, functional simulation models of Arm hardware. They give you the ability to develop, test, and debug full software stacks. This includes firmware, bootloaders, and operating systems - all without the need for access to physical Arm silicon. FVPs replicate Arm CPU behavior, memory, and peripherals using fast binary translation.
FVPs are ideal for early software development and system debugging.
Developers can use FVPs to do the following tasks:
FVPs provide a programmer’s view of the hardware, making them ideal for the following:
You can download prebuilt Armv8-A FVPs at no cost from the Arm Ecosystem Models page.
Available categories include:
A popular model is AEMv8-A Base Platform RevC, which simulates generic Armv8.7-A and Armv9-A CPUs and is fully supported by Arm’s open-source reference software stack .
Some FVPs target specific CPU implementations and include fixed core counts. These are known as CPU FVPs.
Examples include:
To use these, request access via support@arm.com .
This Learning Path uses the open-source Arm reference software stack, which includes the following:
To get started:
Once setup is complete, you’ll be ready to boot and debug Linux on your selected Arm FVP model.