System and method implementing full-rate writes for simulation acceleration

A method comprising the steps of:

• providing a high-speed interface that connects a host workstation to a system bus on a hardware emulation system, the hardware emulation system includes an emulator chip comprising a plurality of emulation processors arranged in a plurality of emulation processor clusters, wherein each emulation processor cluster has:
• an emulation processor of the plurality of emulation processors,
• a holding register to receive emulation data generated by the emulation processor, and
• a data array comprising a plurality of register arrays or memories, wherein the data array comprises a write port and a read port, wherein the write port is connected to the holding register to receive the emulation data, and connected directly to the system bus, wherein the data array is directly accessible by the host workstation through the system bus, and wherein the read port is connected to an input port of the emulation processor;
• sending simulation acceleration data to the system bus over the high-speed interface;
• storing emulation data generated by the emulation processor into the holding register;
• selecting the simulation acceleration data on the system bus as input into the write port of the data array;
• writing the simulation acceleration data to the data array during an emulation step of a first plurality of emulation steps;
• and
• writing the emulation data from the holding register to the data array during an emulation step of a second plurality of emulation steps, wherein the second plurality of emulation steps alternate with the first plurality of emulation steps.