MIPS Adds Hot Spot Analyzer For MIPS32 Cores

The Hot Spot Analyzer (HSA) is an Eclipse plug-in that provides non-intrusive profiling of software running on MIPS32 cores. The analyzer is built on the unique Zero Overhead Program Counter Sampling Feature that is included in the MIPS 24K, 34K, and 74K cores.

The tool, which is licensed as an Eclipse plug-in, combines the program counter feature with MIPS’ System Navigator EJTAG probe and host software to collect and display measurement results in the MIPS Navigator IDE, an Eclipse-based development and analysis tool. The HSA was designed specifically to support Linux kernel profiling, which resides in the kseg0 region of the MIPS memory architecture. It can handle large numbers of module and function symbols and accumulate counts for each address range they support.

After it accumulates the total counts, the HSA sorts and displays the percentage of total counts for each symbol, proving a profile view of the target’s kernel activity. With this information, the user can quickly identify program bottlenecks that are restricting system performance and understand the best methods for making kernel system calls.

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