AN 796: Cyclone® V and Arria® V SoC Device Design Guidelines

ID 683360
Date 3/30/2022
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.1.7.3. Select Software Trace Tools

Tracing can be very helpful for profiling performance bottlenecks, debugging crash scenarios and debugging complex cases. Tracing can be performed in two ways:
  • Non-real-time: by storing trace data in system memory (for example SDRAM) or the embedded trace buffer, then stopping the system, downloading the trace information and analyzing it.
  • Real-time: by using an external adapter trace data from the trace port. The target board needs to support this scenario.

Typically, the debug tools also offer tracing of the embedded software program execution, but external hardware may be required. For example, the DS-5 provided with the SoC EDS supports both non-real-time and real-time tracing. When used for real-time tracing, an additional external trace unit called “DSTREAM” is required. Lauterbach T32 is a similar example, in that it needs additional external hardware for real-time tracing.