Start tracing with TASKING Compact Emulation Adapters

Octo­ber 23, 2023

In the realm of embed­ded sys­tems develop­ment, hav­ing access to pro­gram and data trace is cru­cial. It’s the key to gain­ing deep insights into your micro­con­troller’s activ­i­ties dur­ing develop­ment and test­ing. How­ev­er, not all tar­get devices come equipped with trace capa­bil­i­ties, which is where TASKING Emu­la­tion Adapters come into play.

When is an Emulation Adapter needed? 

Before we dive into the specifics of Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters, let us clar­i­fy when you might need an Emu­la­tion Adapter in the first place. Emu­la­tion Adapters are essen­tial when you are work­ing with a tar­get device that lacks pro­gram and data trace capa­bil­i­ties. It makes trac­ing pos­si­ble on devices: 

  • with­out the trace pins,  
  • devices that only fea­ture lim­it­ed trace capa­bil­i­ties or 
  • trace sig­nals are not exposed. 

These adapters act as a bridge between your develop­ment envi­ron­ment and the micro­con­troller, enabling real-time trac­ing and debug­ging with­out dis­rupt­ing the real-time appli­ca­tion behav­ior.

How does an Emulation Adapter work? 

At its core, an Emu­la­tion Adapters serves as a drop-in replace­ment for the orig­i­nal micro­con­troller on your board. It mim­ics the func­tion­al­i­ty of the pro­duc­tion sil­i­con but adds the essen­tial debug and trac­ing capa­bil­i­ties you need for effec­tive develop­ment and test­ing. To accom­mo­date dif­fer­ent micro­con­troller pack­ages, you will use an appro­pri­ate con­ver­sion board. 

For instance, the Infi­neon TC377TE Emu­la­tion Adapter is com­pat­i­ble with TC32x, TC33x, TC36x, and TC37x pack­aged devices, mak­ing it a ver­sa­tile choice for a range of appli­ca­tions. Sim­ply select the con­ver­sion board that match­es your tar­get micro­con­troller, and you are ready to go. 

See the video intro­duc­tion to Emu­la­tion Adapters.   

Why go compact? 

TASKING Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters offer a sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage when space is lim­it­ed, or sig­nal integri­ty is cru­cial. 

tasking compact emulation adapters bluebox
A visu­al com­par­i­son between a stan­dard emu­la­tion adapter and the com­pact ver­sion

Space restrictions

In many appli­ca­tions, there’s lim­it­ed space avail­able for adding addi­tion­al hard­ware. Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters are designed with a min­i­mal ver­ti­cal foot­print, ensur­ing that they will not con­sume valu­able real estate on board. This com­pact­ness makes them ideal for projects with tight spa­tial con­straints. 

Signal integrity 

Sig­nal integri­ty is para­mount in high-speed data trans­fer appli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, the Infi­neon TC399XE Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapter enables using Giga­bit Eth­er­net. Com­pact adapters are engi­neered to main­tain sig­nal integri­ty, ensur­ing that your data trans­mis­sion remains robust and reli­able.  

Compact Emulation Adapters options 

Cur­rent­ly, we sup­port the fol­low­ing Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters: 

  • Infi­neon TC397XE sup­port­ing TC397Xx, TC387QP TC3E7Qx MCUs
  • Infi­neon TC377TE sup­port­ing TC397Xx, TC387QP, TC3E7Qx MCUs
  • Infi­neon TC399XE sup­port­ing TC389QP, TC399XX, TC399XP MCUs 

All Infi­neon Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters sup­port the fol­low­ing debug and trace inter­faces:

  • DAP 
  • AGBT

For more details refer to Hard­ware User Man­u­als.  

Conclusion 

In sum­ma­ry, TASKING Com­pact Emu­la­tion Adapters pro­vide a stream­lined solu­tion for sce­nar­ios where space con­straints and sig­nal integri­ty are cru­cial con­sid­er­a­tions.

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