Stmicroelectronics Gmbh

Hitachi, Ltd.

Anthony Willis Rich

David Alan Edwards

Andrew Michael Jones

Bernard Ramanadin

John A Carey

Margaret Rose Gearty

Glenn Ashley Farrall

Atsushi Hasegawa

An microcomputer is provided including a processor and a debug circuit including a dedicated link which transfers information between the processor and debug circuit to support debugging operations. In one aspect, the processor provides program counter information, which is stored in a memory-mapped register of the debug circuit. The program counter information may be a value of the processor program counter at a writeback stage of a processor pipeline. Also, trace information including message information is transferred in a non-intrusive manner over the dedicated link. In one aspect, the microcomputer is implemented as a single integrated circuit.

Interface for transferring debug information

A circuit for monitoring information put onto an interconnect by one or more modules, said circuit comprising circuitry for determining if the information on the interconnect matches one or more conditions; and circuitry for preventing a module from putting further information onto said interconnect if it is determined that information on the interconnect matches said one or more conditions.

Circuit for monitoring information on an interconnect

In a system comprising an interconnect and a plurality of modules connected to said interconnect for putting information onto the interconnect, a circuit comprising circuitry for receiving at least part of said of said information; circuitry for determining if said at least part of said information satisfies one or more conditions; and circuitry for performing one or more actions in response to the determination that at least part of the information satisfies one or more conditions.

Detection of information on an interconnect

A system for performing non-intrusive trace is provided which receives trace information from one or more processors. The trace system may be configured by a user to operate in various modes for flexibly storing or transmitting the trace information. The trace system includes a FIFO which is memory-mapped and is capable of being accessed without affecting processor performance. In one aspect, the trace system includes a trace buffer which receives trace information at an internal clock speed of the processor. In another embodiment, a compression protocol is provided for compressing trace messages on-chip prior to transmitting the messages to an external system or storing the messages in memory.

Method for compressing and decompressing trace information

Apparatus and method for shadowing processor information

Circuit for processing trace information

Circuit for storing trace information

A system and method for communicating with an integrated circuit is provided that allows an integrated circuit to communicate debugging information and system bus transaction information with an external system. The system may include an interface protocol that provides flow control between the integrated circuit and the external system. The system may include a high-speed link and/or a JTAG link for communicating information. A link may be automatically selected by a debug circuit, or selected by an on-chip device or external system. The high-speed link enables real-time collection of trace information. Links may be memory-mapped, such that on-chip devices and other devices attached to the system bus may access the external system. The high-speed link may also operate at a rate which is integrally coupled with a rate of the processor or system bus. Further, the high-speed link may be adapted to change speeds in response to a change in operating speed of the system bus or processor. The JTAG interface may utilize standard JTAG components and instructions such that external devices such as debug adaptors adopting these components and instructions may be re-used for different integrated circuit types. Information transmitted over the JTAG or high-speed link may be compressed to optimize available bandwidth of the links. Also, processor control signals can be transferred through links that allow an external system to manipulate and monitor operation of the processor and its associated modules.

System and method for communicating with an integrated circuit

A computer system, comprising at least one central processing unit and a memory unit coupled to the at least one central processing unit, a set of watchpoints defined in the computer system; each watchpoint in the set of watchpoints comprising a programmable precondition register and a programmable action register, a set of latches, and selection circuitry that selects one latch in the set of latches to couple an output of an action register to an input of the selected latch.

Microcomputer debug architecture and method

In a system comprising an interconnect and a plurality of modules connected to the interconnect, a circuit for controlling which of said modules is able to put information onto said interconnect, said circuit comprising a store which stores status information for each module, said status information defining if the respective module is permitted to put information on said interconnect.

Circuit for storing information

A circuit for use in a system comprising a plurality of modules connected to an interconnect, said modules being arranged to put information onto said interconnect, said circuit comprising circuitry for determining if information on the interconnect satisfies one or more conditions; and circuitry for storing at least part of the information which satisfies the one or more conditions.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, New Zealand

Anthony Willis Rich