Non-intrusive in-system debugging for a microcontroller with in-system programming capabilities using in-system debugging circuitry and program embedded in-system debugging commands
First Claim
1. An in-system debug (ISD) apparatus for debugging a program residing in a microcontroller of a microcontroller system, the apparatus comprising:
- a system board of the microcontroller system;
a microcontroller having built-in ISI) hardware circuitry mounted on the system board having a pin that provides a first function during a normal mode of operation and a second data relay function during an internally controlled in-system debugging mode of operation for relaying data generated by the microcontroller responsive to executing the program to an external monitoring system without affecting the normal I/O operations of the microcontroller, andthe external monitoring system, comprising;
an ISD interface board coupled to the system board for receiving the data generated by the microcontroller; and
a computer system coupled to the ISD interface board, the computer system comprising an ISD software module for monitoring the data generated by the microcontroller.
9 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An in-system debugging (ISD) capability is incorporated into a production microcontroller. The ISD capability is incorporated without the costly addition of any extra pins to read out the data for debugging by using the oscillator pins of the production microcontroller to read out the data. Building such an ISD capability into the microcontroller, enables debugging to be performed on the actual production board (instead of a special debug board) having the actual production microcontroller (instead of a bond-out microcontroller). This allows designers to debug programming using the actual production system instead of an emulation system.
67 Citations
20 Claims
-
1. An in-system debug (ISD) apparatus for debugging a program residing in a microcontroller of a microcontroller system, the apparatus comprising:
-
a system board of the microcontroller system; a microcontroller having built-in ISI) hardware circuitry mounted on the system board having a pin that provides a first function during a normal mode of operation and a second data relay function during an internally controlled in-system debugging mode of operation for relaying data generated by the microcontroller responsive to executing the program to an external monitoring system without affecting the normal I/O operations of the microcontroller, and the external monitoring system, comprising; an ISD interface board coupled to the system board for receiving the data generated by the microcontroller; and a computer system coupled to the ISD interface board, the computer system comprising an ISD software module for monitoring the data generated by the microcontroller. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
-
-
17. A method for in-system debugging (ISD) of a program to be loaded into a microcontroller having built-in hardware circuitry, the microcontroller having a normal mode of operation, and an in-system programming (ISP) mode of operation, the method comprising:
-
entering an in-system programming (ISP) mode of the microcontroller, loading the program with embedded ISD commands into an EEPROM of the microcontroller; exiting the ISP mode of the microcontroller; and executing the program in normal mode of operation while monitoring execution of the program by the microcontroller without affecting the normal I/O operations of the microcontroller, wherein monitoring the execution of the program is performed using an external monitoring system coupled to an ISD interface for receiving data generated by the microcontroller via a pin that provides a first function during a normal mode of operation and a second data relay function in an ISD mode of operation. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
-
Specification