Software design and embedded system tools.
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In-circuit Emulator
In-Circuit Emulator
For debugging an embedded system’s software, a certain kind of hardware tool is used, which is termed as in-circuit emulator (ICE). It is first among the embedded system debugging tools and is still one of the most popular one.
Example of In-Circuit Emulator
The peculiar problem with embedded systems is it doesn’t have a terminal or in most of the cases, a display unit, therefore, making it difficult to probe the system to find what is wrong and debug. ICEs provide a solution to this typical problem of debugging embedded systems. The Emulator can track all the operations going inside a CPU under observation and brings it to the direct observation of the user through its interactive terminal. The ICEs not only provide the information about the targeted embedded systems working procedure, but it also provides a huge debugging resource. The ICEs are still one of the most popular tools as it is still unrivalled for its power and capability.
The house of Microchip offers In-Circuit Emulators in three variants. MPLAB ICE 2000, MPLAB ICE 4000 and REAL ICE. All three of them are full circuit emulators and can be used with MPLAB IDE.
The MPLAB ICE 2000 has a parallel interface along with USB converter, and it requires an emulator module. The drawback with MPLAB ICE 2000 is that the hardware to be tested must have a socket for production device or emulator module.
I will not discuss about MPLAB ICE 4000, as Microchip is phasing it out. It is no longer advertised by Microchip and Microchip also does not recommended it for new designs.The REAL ICE is the most recently launched product in the market. It works on almost all flash based processors like PIC24, dsPIC, PIC etc.
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- ICE E6000H from Renesas
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- MPLAB ICE 2000 from Microchip
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- MPLAB REAL ICE
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- ICE from Fujitsu (MB2147-01)
The advantages of ICE
All embedded systems have two parts, software and hardware. Though both of them are separate they are interlinked. The ICE makes it possible to run and check the software on the hardware it was meant to run. While doing so, the ICE also helps the user to identify the faulty codes.
Nowadays, the debugging circuit integrated into the CPU can be accessed by the JTAG or BDM provided on the CPU. This new option helps the programmer to conveniently debug an embedded system with ease.The Integrated Circuit Emulator gets its name as it does emulate the CPU. Though it has a real processor fitted, the programmer still finds the system under test to be in his full control, and he can identify faulty codes, debug as well as load directly. This real time trouble shooting on a live system gives ICE an edge in the sphere of accuracy and comfort in use.The CPU used for development is not necessarily related to the host systems.The ICEs gives the option of debugging by single stepping. The phrase single stepping means that the programmer can run and observe the lines of a program step by step to find and modify error.The ICEs also gives the option of source level debugging where the programmer can see the program as it was drafted and identify the errors.
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