Real-Time Trace: A Better Way to Debug Embedded Applications

James Campbell, Valeriy Kazantsev (Synopsys Inc.), Hugh O’Keeffe (Ashling Microsystems)

Firmware and application software development is often the critical path for many embedded designs. Problems that appear in the late phases of the development can be extremely difficult to track down and debug, thus putting project schedules at risk. Traditional debug techniques cannot always help to localize the issue. This white paper shows the benefits of debugging with ‘real-time trace’ hardware assistance, including how it can vastly reduce the amount of time needed to track down problems in the code, and introduces other benefits, such as hot-spot profiling and code coverage, offered by real-time trace systems.