Hardware Debug Toolbox

The Hardware Debug Toolbox™ targets VLAB™ users who need to solve problems involving the behaviour and interactions of the simulation objects in a virtual platform. These simulation objects are usually models of hardware components and the primary use of this toolbox is to support the instrumentation, debug, and analysis of behaviour and interactions of virtual hardware components.

With the Hardware Debug Toolbox, it is possible to have a simulation breakpoint triggered by access or state change in any port, signal or register in the simulation. Furthermore, a scripted callback can optionally be executed in response to a breakpoint, thus enabling simple yet powerful control over the progress of a simulation.

To specify which objects in the simulation have to be traced, the toolbox offers an intuitive text-based query interface. Objects can be selected by hierarchical name, kind, activity, description, or any combination of these. The query notation, inspired by a popular web search engine, is essentially free of learning curve. Even new users can take immediate advantage of the expressive instrumentation interface.

The toolbox enables tracing of any simulation changes and event to an optimised database (ODA) format. Compared to tracing to a plain text or VCD file, this brings significant speed and size advantages. Furthermore, ODA tracing enables advanced on-the-fly virtual platform analysis and debug capability.

The Hardware Debug Toolbox features OSCAR® Data Analysis (ODA) tool to simplify debugging hardware and target software. It provides a real-time view into the instrumentation data, regardless of its volume or frequency of update. Using the same powerful query language as the instrumentation interface in VLAB, ODA enables users to quickly zoom into a specific aspect of the simulation behaviour and identify an underlying problem while the simulation may still be running.