Debugger and probe speed automotive MCU designs: News from Green Hills Software

Note: A free brochure or catalogue is available from Green Hills Software on the products in this news release. Click here to request a copy.

The TimeMachine 4-D debugger and Supertrace probe are now available for the Motorola MPC5554, a 32bit PowerPC controller for advanced automotive and industrial systems. The Green Hills tools are expected to slash development time for the MPC5554. The TimeMachine 4-D debugger and SuperTrace probe are part of a total solution for developing applications on the MPC5554, joining the Multi integrated development environment (IDE) and Green Hills optimising C and C++ compilers which consistently produce the smallest and fastest code in industry benchmarks on the PowerPC processor.

Both TimeMachine and SuperTrace probe are available immediately for the MPC5554.

The TimeMachine debugger provides developers the ability to run and step an application back in time after a failure occurs, allowing easy identification of its root cause.

This avoids the tedious and open-ended process of trial-and-error debugging required by previous generations of temporally challenged debuggers.

The TimeMachine debugger exploits the power of Green Hills Software's SuperTrace probe that can collect up to a gigabyte of trace data from the MPC5554, more than 20 times the typical trace depth of other probes.

The SuperTrace probe supports trace ports running at speeds beyond 300MHz, collecting trace data while the CPU executes at full speed.

TimeMachine then analyses the trace data to reconstruct the code execution steps that the processor followed.

Once a bug has been trapped in the SuperTrace probe, TimeMachine makes it easy to eradicate the bug.

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.

The MPC5554 is a total solution that offers a new level of microcontroller capability.

As demands on automotive and industrial designs increase, the MPC5554 offers system performance up to five times higher than its market-leading MPC500 predecessors.

It includes 2Mbyte of embedded Flash memory - the largest amount of embedded Flash offered from Motorola to date - enhanced timer systems through eTPUs and a peripheral set specifically tailored for automotive and industrial applications.

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Debugger and probe speed automotive MCU designs

The TimeMachine 4-D debugger and SuperTrace probe are now available for the Motorola MPC5554, a 32bit PowerPC controller for advanced automotive and industrial systems.