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Product category: Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Green Hills Software | Subject: SuperTrace probe
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 7 August 2003

Trace probe has elephantine memory

A new hardware trace probe brings 1Gbyte of high-speed software trace collection to processors with embedded trace ports

A new hardware trace probe from Green Hills Software brings 1Gbyte of high-speed software trace collection to processors with embedded trace ports. Combining the highest-speed trace engine available with the largest trace memory, the new Green Hills' Supertrace probe gives developers the broadest possible window into embedded software execution.

The SuperTrace probe provides both a means of controlling the processor's trace logic and a channel for capturing trace data while the processor is running.

In addition to the trace features, the new probe also includes all the run-control features of the original Green Hills Probe.

Compatible with the PowerPC 405, PowerPC 440, ARM7 Embedded Trace Macrocell (ETM), ARM9 ETM (multicore and single-core), and ARM10 ETM, the SuperTrace probe is capable of expanding to handle ColdFire processor families as well as Nexus-compatible devices.

Additionally, the new probe works with all ETM modes - including double-rate - at clock speeds beyond 300MHz.

Green Hills' new probe features a 1Gbyte trace buffer that can capture several hundred million processor cycles of execution and data trace.

This is in contrast to a typical trace probe which uses only a few megabytes of trace buffer to hold data, giving developers a narrow window into code execution and forcing them to apply complex trigger conditions to the processor's trace logic in order to limit data collection.

To help developers efficiently locate information in its large data buffer, the SuperTrace probe works closely with Green Hills' Multi integrated development environment.

Trace data is uploaded from the SuperTrace probe to Multi's host system through a USB or 10/100 Ethernet connection.

Triggers and trace conditions are configured and set from Multi, allowing developers to correlate their trace settings to source code.

Complicated trigger conditions can be graphically configured with state transition diagrams.

To assist developers with code optimisation, Multi can calculate execution statistics such as the memory locations most read and written, the number of branches executed, the number of branches taken, and, if available on the target CPU, the number of cycles executed per instruction, function, task and address space.

The first production release of the Green Hills SuperTrace probe is scheduled to ship in October 2003.

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