October 21, 2013. Software engineers debugging code for multicore systems-on-a-chip (SoC) based on Intel's new Silvermont microarchitecture will be able to take advantage of Silvermont's Real-Time Instruction Trace (RTIT) capability with ASSET InterTech's Arium SourcePoint debugger.
The SourcePoint debugger is able to extend its debug and trace capabilities over the entire Silvermont SoC. The instruction capture and display features of SourcePoint make the process intuitive because of the various views the developer has into code execution. For example, four different types of views—code, trace, branch and chart—give developers the ability to visualize code execution even when code is running on multiple cores. All four views are synchronized to simplify moving from one view to another. The root causes of bugs like performance bottlenecks or execution ordering problems can be quickly visualized for further analysis by the software developer. In addition, timestamps accurate to a particular processor cycle are provided by SourcePoint.
“Intel has optimized the Silvermont microarchitecture for its 22-nm SoC fabrication process,” said Larry Osborn, ASSET product manager for Arium software debug tools. “We expect to see Silvermont-based designs for microservers, storage systems, networking systems, and many other applications that require high performance but low power consumption. Debugging with Silvermont's embedded RTIT capabilities and the many powerful SourcePoint tools will certainly accelerate the software development process.”
To serve the needs of different types of design teams working on a wide range of applications, two ASSET Arium hardware modules support the SourcePoint debugger. The cost-effective ECM-XDP3 is a run-control probe capable of configuring and accessing trace data and storing it on-chip or on the target platform. Another hardware module, the LX-1000 Trace Port Analyzer, has two gigabytes of memory where trace results can be stored off-chip. Software and firmware engineers can thoroughly and effectively examine the trace results using the LX-1000 to identify the precise location of the cause of a bug. Analytical capabilities such as statistical tabulation and others are synchronized with SoucePoint's line-by-line code display of trace results.
The SourcePoint debugger, which takes advantage of Intel's embedded RTIT capabilities within Silvermont-based SoCs, is available now from ASSET InterTech and its distributors. Pricing begins at $11,800.