SPRUI30H November 2015 – May 2024 DRA745 , DRA746 , DRA750 , DRA756
Debugging a system that contains an embedded processor involves an environment that connects high-level debugging software running on a host computer to a low-level debug interface supported by the target device. Between these levels, a debug and trace controller (DTC) facilitates communication between the host debugger and the debug support logic on the target chip.
The DTC is a combination of hardware and software that connects the host debugger to the target system. The DTC uses one or more hardware interfaces and/or protocols to convert actions dictated by the debugger user to JTAG® commands and scans that execute the core hardware.
The debug software and hardware components let the user control multiple central processing unit (CPU) cores embedded in the device in a global or local manner. This environment provides:
System topics include but are not limited to:
For easy integration into applications, a set of application-programming interfaces (APIs) for debug-IP programming and a software message library are provided. CToolsLib is a library of embedded target APIs to enable easy programmatic access to the chip tools (CTools), which are system-level debug facilities included in the debug subsystem capabilities of TI devices. More information about the APIs, download files, and other useful links for available libraries can be found on the CToolsLib Wiki site:
http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/CToolsLib
The previous link connects to TI community resources. Linked contents are provided “AS IS” by the respective contributors. They do not constitute TI specifications and do not necessarily reflect TI's views; see TI's Terms of Use.
TI also provides a Register Descriptor Tool (RDT). The RDT is a Java™- based stand-alone application. It is an interactive device register database configuration software. It allows the user to:
The advantage of the tool is that the user can visualize the register state on power-on reset and then customize the configuration of the device for the specific use-case and identify the device register settings associated to that configuration.
Being an interactive visual tool, the RDT gives the user a global view of the device setting architecture and allows determining the exact register settings to obtain the specific configuration.
Figure 33-1 is a screenshot diagram of the RDT.