Debugging, tracing, and testing made easy with TASKING Active Probe Debug

Octo­ber 12, 2023

In the world of micro­con­troller develop­ment, effi­cient debug­ging and trac­ing are essen­tial for ensur­ing the reli­a­bil­i­ty and per­for­mance of embed­ded sys­tems. One invalu­able tool in this realm is the TASKING Active Probe Debug, a pow­er­ful and ver­sa­tile solu­tion that sim­pli­fies debug­ging.  

Active Probe Debug
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Active Probe Debug

Supporting diverse Debug protocols 

Active Probe Debug is your go-to com­pan­ion for debug­ging, trac­ing, and test­ing a wide array of micro­con­troller archi­tec­tures that are sup­port­ed by the winIDEA. It empow­ers devel­op­ers with the abil­i­ty to har­ness var­i­ous debug pro­to­cols, mak­ing the debug­ging process seam­less and effi­cient. These pro­to­cols include: 

  • Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) 
  • ARM’s Ser­i­al Wire Debug (SWD) 
  • RH850’s Low Pin-Count Debug (LPD) 

Versatile Trace Capture methods 

Active Probe Debug does­n’t stop at pro­to­cols; it also pro­vides ver­sa­tile Trace Cap­ture meth­ods, enhanc­ing its adapt­abil­i­ty for var­i­ous sce­nar­ios. One such inter­face is ARM’s Embed­ded Trace Buffer (ETB), a pow­er­ful resource for in-depth debug­ging. Addi­tion­al­ly, it offers low-speed ser­i­al trace options, like Sin­gle Wire Out­put (SWO), which can be cru­cial for spe­cif­ic debug­ging tasks. 

You can check all the details in Hard­ware User Man­u­als.

Compact and accessible 

The com­pact size of Active Probe Debug is designed with prac­ti­cal­i­ty in mind. It can eas­i­ly fit into tight spaces, extend­ing its reach to tar­get micro­con­trollers locat­ed up to 10 meters away. This acces­si­bil­i­ty ensures that you can effi­cient­ly debug sys­tems even in con­strained envi­ron­ments. 

Active Probe Adapters 

Active Probe Debug is con­nect­ed to the iC5700 Blue­Box via an FNet cable, ensur­ing a reli­able con­nec­tion to the debug­ging infra­struc­ture. To con­nect Active Probe Debug to an embed­ded tar­get with an archi­tec­ture-spe­cif­ic tar­get con­nec­tor, an Active Probe Adapter is required.  

Block diagram showing how BlueBox Hardware is connected
                                         Block dia­gram show­ing how Blue­Box Hard­ware is con­nect­ed

You can check all the details in Hard­ware User Man­u­als.

Adapting to different architectures  

Active Probe Adapters play a cru­cial role in estab­lish­ing a con­nec­tion between Active Probe Debug and the embed­ded tar­get. These adapters are com­pat­i­ble with a wide range of micro­con­troller archi­tec­tures, includ­ing: 

  • ARM Cor­tex 
  • RISC‑V 
  • NXP/ST Power Archi­tec­ture 
  • Rene­sas RH850 

Designed with flex­i­bil­i­ty in mind, these adapters accom­mo­date dif­fer­ent Tar­get con­nec­tor pitch­es, ensur­ing com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with var­i­ous embed­ded sys­tems.  

mDIO port for enhanced Interaction 

Active Probe Debug also fea­tures an mDIO port. mDIO port is a small DIO — sig­nal observ­er or gen­er­a­tor on the side of the Active Probes. This port pro­vides two dig­i­tal sig­nals that can inter­act with the embed­ded tar­get. These sig­nals can be con­fig­ured for input or out­put oper­a­tion, allow­ing for ver­sa­tile inter­ac­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties. Togeth­er with mDIO cable, it offers var­i­ous func­tion­al­i­ties, e.g.: 

  • Pin tog­gling and trig­ger­ing 
  • Hard­ware-in-the-Loop (HIL) con­trol 
  • Pat­tern gen­er­a­tion 

Above all, it is con­trol­lable: 

  • Man­u­al­ly via winIDEA 
  • Pro­gram­mat­i­cal­ly via isystem.connect API and there­fore it can be used for test automa­tion 

You can use the mDIO fea­ture for var­i­ous use cases: 

  • Power cycling a tar­get device 
  • Han­dling watch­dog 
  • Man­u­al­ly con­trol the tar­get state, includ­ing pro­gram inputs via the HIL mon­i­tor 
  • Trans­mit dif­fer­ent fre­quen­cies to rep­re­sent dis­tinct sig­nal lev­els 

Conclusion 

Active Probe Debug is a must-have tool for micro­con­troller devel­op­ers, offer­ing com­pre­hen­sive sup­port for debug­ging, trac­ing, and test­ing. Its com­pat­i­bil­i­ty with a vari­ety of micro­con­troller archi­tec­tures, ver­sa­tile inter­faces, and com­pact design makes it an invalu­able asset in your embed­ded sys­tems develop­ment toolk­it. Ensure a smooth debug­ging expe­ri­ence and enhance your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty with Active Probe Debug and its asso­ci­at­ed acces­sories. 

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