Diagnostic data capture within an integrated circuit
AssigneeArm Limited
InventorsPaul Kimelman, Ian Field
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An integrated circuit is provided with a diagnostic data capture and output system in the form of a diagnostic data capture circuit which captures a data word and a context word from a bus. The bus may be the functional bus connecting functional circuits within the integrated circuit or a dedicated bus linking one or more functional circuits directly to the diagnostic data capture circuit. The diagnostic data captured is buffered within a first-in-first-out buffer and then serialised for output. The diagnostic data fields also include a time value indicative of the time at which the diagnostic data field concerned was captured and whether any diagnostic data fields have failed to be captured.
Claims52
An integrated circuit, said integrated circuit comprising:
- one or more functional circuits operable to perform data processing operations;
- a diagnostic data capture circuit operable to capture from a bus a diagnostic data field of values comprising a data word generated by said one or more functional circuits and a context word representing a context of said one or more functional circuits associated with said data word;
- and
- a diagnostic data serial output circuit operable to serialise said diagnostic data field and output said diagnostic data field from said integrated circuit to an external diagnostic device.
A diagnostic device for receiving diagnostic data from an integrated circuit, said diagnostic device comprising:
- a diagnostic data serial data receiver operable to receive serial data representing a diagnostic field of values captured from a bus within said integrated circuit;
- and
- a diagnostic data decoder operable to decode said diagnostic field to identify therein a data word generated by one or more functional circuits within said integrated circuit and a context word representing a context of said one or more functional circuits associated with said data word.
A method of generating diagnostic data representative of one or more data processing operations performed by one or more functional circuits of an integrated circuit, said method comprising:
- capturing from a bus a diagnostic data field of values comprising a data word generated by said one or more functional circuits and a context word representing a context of said one or more functional circuits associated with said data word;
- and
- serialising said diagnostic data field;
- and
- outputting said diagnostic data field from said integrated circuit to an external diagnostic device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.