Systems and methods for monitoring hardware observation points within a system on a chip (soc)

Abstract

Systems and methods for monitoring hardware observation points within a System on a Chip (SoC) are disclosed. In one embodiment, a monitoring system includes observers electrically coupled to corresponding hardware observation points. For each observation time period, the observer receives events from a corresponding hardware observation point and outputs observation data indicative of the number of events received. Each observer operates in the same clock and power domain as the corresponding hardware observation point. The hardware monitoring system includes collectors; each collector receives the observation data from a corresponding observer for the observation time period(s). Each collector updates a value of a live-counter based on the observation data and outputs the value of the live-counter. By counting the number of events at the hardware observation points, the monitoring system can enable detailed runtime monitoring, which can be used, e.g., for optimizing future hardware iterations and to support software power optimizations.