News - Board and System Test

Multi-Core Debugging and Test Automation

23 February 2016 – PLS Programmierbare Logik & Systeme has not only expanded the latest version of its Universal Debug Engine (UDE) with a number of additional trace and debugging functions, but has also added completely new features for test automation. This now enables users to utilize the enormous performance of the newest multicore System-on-Chip (SoC) families, with as few restrictions as possible. PLS is presenting the new UDE 4.6 at embedded world 2016 in Hall 4, Booth 310.

UDE 4.6 supports a wide range of different architectures and new device families such as: the Power Architecture-based SPC58 E series and the ARM Cortex-M7 core-based STM32F7 series from STMicroelectronics, the XMC4800 devices from Infineon, which are the first-ever ARM Cortex-M4-based microcontrollers with EtherCAT integrated, and the Zynq-7000 family from Xilinx, which is equipped with a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 and additional FPGA.

The Universal Emulation Configurator (UEC) of the UDE for definition of trace-based measurement tasks has been expanded with a library for the Mini-MCDS (Multi-Core Debug Solution) of the current AURIX devices from Infineon. This means that some of the diagnostic possibilities, which until now were only offered by special Emulation Devices, are now available for the first time in production chips. A JTAG standard debug interface or Debug Access Port (DAP) on the target is the only requirement for the use of this feature.

Another significant innovation: With the UDE 4.6, support for Synopsys’ Virtualizer simulator platform has been expanded to multicore systems. Therefore, the UDE can also be used as a frontend for multicore simulations based on AUIRX/TriCore, Power Architecture or ARM core models.

Furthermore, thanks to the innovative approach of persistent trace streams within the UDE, export of trace data as well as their subsequent import and an offline analysis without a cost-intensive Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) target environment is also now possible. Management of the various trace recordings with freely selectable designations and exact timestamps takes place directly in the debugger’s user interface. Smart filter functions for the symbol and peripheral register selection simplify the navigation even in large applications and very complex SoCs.

The complete cross-debugger functionality of the UDE 4.6 is also available as an own debug perspective also within the Eclipse environment including the current Eclipse version 4.5 (Mars) and CDT 8.7.

www.pls-mc.com/

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