News - Board and System Test

Testing and Debugging highly complex heterogeneous multicore SoCs

03 February 2015 - PLS Programmierbare Logik & Systeme is presenting its Universal Debug Engine (UDE) 4.4. The UDE 4.4 features significantly enhanced debugging procedures for complex system-on-chips (SoCs) with heterogeneous controller cores, optimized data visualization in system-level debugging as well as dedicated support of a wide range of state-of-the-art 32-bit multicore SoCs of different manufacturers.

Control of the respective multicore SoCs and their debugging is carried out with the UDE 4.4 within a specifically optimized user interface. Various colors determinable by the user and even definable groups of views for individual function units ensure a fast overview and simple navigation, also in complex devices. Both separate and synchronized control of the active units is optionally possible.

The different on-chip debug logic of the chip architectures is fully supported and the UDE offers the user a vendor-independent, and at the same time, a consistent user interface. Among other things, with the UDE 4.4 trace data streams can now be stored in a databank and thus used for later offline analysis. Furthermore, measurement results can be automatically accumulated for carrying out code coverage measurements with limited on-chip trace memory. In order to enable branch coverage measurements on highly optimized code, the UDE 4.4 defines an enhancement of the DWARF standard, freely available for all compiler manufacturers. In addition to the presentation of variables at runtime of the program, a similar presentation based on data trace is also possible.

With PLS' Universal Access Device 3+ (UAD3+), a powerful hardware tool with 4 GB external trace memory is available for recording external trace data. Thanks to an Aurora trace pod supporting four serial high-speed lanes each with up to 3.25 gigabit per second (Gbit/s) transfer rate, the UAD3+ is also well equipped to meet future requirements.

In particular, in the areas of trace data analysis, macros and multicore breakpoints, the object model of the UDE, which serves for test automation and interaction with other tools, is also significantly enhanced. This feature-rich and flexible software interface of the UDE is used by further external tools for target access, flash programming and target control. These include PikeTec’s time partition testing (TPT) for model-base testing as well as the UML debugger from LieberLieber Software, which offers debugging on the UML model level as an option for Enterprise Architect / Embedded Engineer.

Microcontrollers (MCUs) newly supported by the UDE 4.4 include Infineon's AURIX family (TC29x, TC27x, TC26x, TC23x and TC22x including Emulation Devices), Freescale's Qorivva MPC57XX family (MPC5746M, MPC5777M, MPC5748G, MPC5746C, MPC77xK and MPC574xP) as well as STMicroelectronics SPC57x family. With these families of MCUs, programs for the integrated Generic Timer Module (GTM) and Hardware Security Module (HSM) can also be debugged. Furthermore, the Infineon TLE986x Embedded Power ICs, the STMicroelectronics STM32Fx Cortex-M based devices as well as the Xilinx Zynq-7000 family are also fully supported.

www.pls-mc.com/

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