EDA & Development
include a professional debugger with multi-processor debug capabilities, real- time tracing and support for all the expected features, such as simple and conditional code and data breakpoints, full execution control functions, memory and CPU register views and call-stack view.
creation of a code review session by defining which files in the project shall take part and which project members become reviewers. Reviewers can study the source code files in the editor and add comments to various code lines that can then be discussed with colleagues in a code review
LeCroy unveils a 60 GHz real-time
bandwidth oscilloscope LeCroy Corporation has unveiled new high bandwidth (36 GHz) and sample rate (80 GS/s) silicon technologies in the LabMaster 10 Zi oscilloscopes. This advanced new chipset when combined with LeCroy’s Digital Bandwidth Interleave (DBI) and LabMaster ChannelSync architecture provides five times more channels, more silicon-based bandwidth, nearly double the silicon-based bandwidth using DBI, and pricing comparable to oscilloscopes with far less capability.
Figure 2: Parallel compilation reduces build time
Tools should deliver advanced system analysis enabling in-depth monitoring during execution, for example, for ARM based microcontrollers with support for Serial Wire Viewer (SWV) real-time tracing. A key ability is the support for multi-
processor debugging, enabling the debug of several applications running on different processors, simultaneously in the same debugger. TrueSTUDIO allows any number and combination of embedded single- or multi-processor boards or Windows PC applications to be debugged simultaneously from the same GUI. This enables system-level debugging of two or more embedded boards communicating with each other, or system-level debugging of one or more PC applications communicating with one or more boards.
Code management Embedded project requirements will change and code will need to be extended and modified. Developers may leave a project, and eventually no one will know how the code works or why, or when a change was made, or why it was made or what it looked like previously. A version- control system is required – this is essentially a database containing all project files, including all previous versions and old versions of the project’s directory structure. Development teams also need to keep track of all feature requests, bug reports and to-do items. These issues are typically stored in a centralized issue management system on the team server, such as Trac or Bugzilla. This becomes the central point of all development activities and essentially becomes an activity tracker that is used as a work planning and prioritization tool. A modern C/C++ development tool should be able to connect to this server, and provide integrated features for listing, searching and editing of bug reports and feature requests from inside the C/C++ environment.
Code review Code reviews are considered to be one of the cheapest and best ways to improve software quality. Certainly it is far cheaper to find the bug before the test phase is started. TrueSTUDIO allows the easy
www.cieonline.co.uk
meeting. Now that functions for code reviews are being integrated into professional C/C++ environments, software quality can be dramatically improved.
The manual source code review activity can be extended with automated static source code analysis. Most tools check the coding style versus a formal coding standard, such as MISRA-C. An important feature is the capability to provide statistics about the source code, such as reporting the code complexity level for different C- functions. This tool should be integrated in the C/C++ IDE to simplify its daily routine use and be able to list detected coding standard violations, but also display graphical charts providing overview information.
Most embedded projects do not use a formal test methodology, although increasingly teams are looking into the use of unit tests. Unit tests are essentially function calls into C/C++ functions, where each function call use a different combination of input parameter values, to drive different execution paths in the function. But writing unit tests take time and usually do not cover all the important execution paths anyway. A better approach is to use a full embedded-test- automation system. Such tools have not been common in the embedded industry previously, but new tools now offer very powerful test automation capabilities. Additionally, tools for measuring the test quality in-target ought to be deployed to ensure that the test procedures do in fact exercise the important parts of the software.
So, while the software industry has
been progressing rapidly overall, arguably embedded software development tools have not kept pace. However, new tools will provide embedded system developers with highly integrated products that will provide development projects with increased possibilities to deliver well- designed software, on time and on budget, with improved quality.
Atollic |
www.atollic.com Magnus Unemyr is Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Atollic AB
The device includes a number of industry firsts. Four oscilloscope channels, all at silicon-based 36 GHz bandwidth (the highest available) and 80 GS/s sample rate in a single acquisition module, provide twice the bandwidth density of competitive oscilloscopes. The company’s patented Digital Bandwidth Interleave (DBI) technology will allow the extension of the silicon-based 36 GHz bandwidth and 80 GS/s sample rate to 60 GHz and 160 GS/s by combining two 36 GHz channels. The 60 GHz real- time bandwidth is also an industry first, and is nearly twice the bandwidth rating of competitive 32 and 33 GHz oscilloscopes with an equivalent number of channels. Furthermore, the company’s proprietary ChannelSync technology in the LabMaster 10 Zi oscilloscopes will permit precise synchronisation of up to twenty silicon- based 36 GHz / 80 GS/s channels and up to ten 60 GHz / 160 GS/s DBI channels- capability.
The LabMaster 10 Zi’s trigger bandwidth is 30 Ghz, twice that of the WaveMaster 8 Zi-A and LabMaster 9 Zi-A oscilloscopes. The Jitter Noise Floor is very low and the rise time (20-80%) is 5.5 ps for the 60 GHz model, and 9.75 ps for the 36 GHz model. In addition, a 14.1 Gb/s 80-bit serial pattern trigger with support for 8b/10b and 64b/66b symbol triggering and PCI Express Generation 3.0 will be optionally available for LabMaster 10 Zi models. This trigger significantly enhances the value of LabMaster 10 Zi for high speed serial data debugging by providing ability to isolate errors to specific symbols and PCI Express link layer.
The 36 GHz chipset is based on 8HP SiGe which is a widely adopted, mainstream, commercial process backed by chip technology leader IBM Semiconductor. IBM’s 8HP SiGe process is the fourth-generation SiGe process with two times the performance of the previous generation and up to 200 GHz transistor switching speeds. DBI, a proprietary, patented LeCroy technology, provides the ability to double or triple the bandwidth available in raw silicon by splitting a high bandwidth signal into multiple paths of lower bandwidth, acquiring these lower bandwidth signals with best-in-class silicon chip technologies, and then re-assembling the separate lower bandwidth paths into a single high bandwidth path using digital signal processing (DSP). Sample rate and acquisition memory are likewise doubled or tripled along with the bandwidth. The LabMaster modular oscilloscope
architecture separates the oscilloscope signal acquisition function from the display, control, and processing functions. The LabMaster Master Control Module (MCM-
Components in Electronics
Zi) contains the display, controls, ChannelSync architecture, and a powerful server-class CPU. By using ChannelSync technology, up to five LabMaster 10 Zi Acquisition Modules can be synchronized, extending the channel density performance by a factor of five to achieve up to 20 channels at 36 GHz and 10 channels at 60 GHz. To meet a variety of industry needs,
LeCroy is also announcing models with silicon-based 25 and 30 GHz of bandwidth, each with 80 GS/s sampling rate on each channel. Standard memory is 20 Mpts/ch (on all four channels, doubled when channels are bandwidth interleaved) with memory options of 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512 Mpts/ch. Maximum analysis memory of 512 Mpts/ch (36 GHz) and 1024 Mpts/ch (60 GHz) is an industry first, combining long acquisition captures with long memory analysis capability and advanced eye diagram/jitter analysis with the world’s fastest and highest bandwidth density oscilloscopes.
Cloud computing demands are driving rapid developments in buildouts of 28 GBaud (112 Gb/s) DP-QPSK optical coherent modulation systems. For 28 GBaud testing, a LabMaster 10 Zi silicon- based 36 GHz oscilloscope provides a cost- effective solution with low noise. Research is already progressing on >56 GBaud (224 Gb/s) DP-QPSK and 16-QAM optical coherent modulation systems. LabMaster 10 Zi can be configured as a 2 to 4 channel 60 GHz system to allow research at the highest possible symbol rates, approaching 125 GBaud (500 Gb/s) for DP-QPSK or 1 Tb/s for 16-QAM. Optical transmission developments beyond 1 Tb/s will likely make use of lower data transmission rates but mode or frequency domain multiplexing, such as MIMO or OFDM, will require more than the four acquisition channels commonly provided in conventional oscilloscopes. LabMaster 10 Zi modular oscilloscopes provide up to 20 channels at 36 GHz or 10 channels at 60 GHz, thus making possible the development of advanced optical communication systems that would otherwise not be feasible.
LeCroy |
www.lecroy.com December 2011/January 2012 39
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