JTAG (Joint Test Action Group) real-time on-chip debug method and system of multicore processor

Abstract

The invention relates to JTAG (Joint Test Action Group) real-time on-chip debug method and system of a multicore processor. In the method, a software debugger generates a control command in accordance with a JTAG control protocol to cores of a debugged multicore processor, converts the control command to a control flow, and then sends the control flow to an enhanced TAP controller; the enhanced TAP controller converts the received control flow into a data packet in accordance with an on-chip debug communication protocol and sends the data packet to a debug user terminal through a debug bus; the debug user terminal converts the received data packet into a control command, and a response control command generates response data returned to the enhanced TAP controller through the debug bus; the enhanced TAP controller converts the received response data into a control flow in accordance with the JTAG control protocol, and the software debugger obtains the control flow through the enhancedTAP controller. The invention can debug the multicore processor, but is not limited by the quantity of cores of the multicore processor.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the debugging of a multi-core microprocessor chip, in particular to a JTAG real-time on-chip debugging method of a multi-core processor and a system thereof. Background technique [0002] In today's processor design, the clock frequency is close to the limit of the existing production process, and it is no longer possible to improve the performance of the processor simply by increasing the clock frequency. The development of multi-core processors has solved the problems of performance and power consumption. However, run-time debugging of parallel programs on multi-core processors becomes a difficult problem. [0003] There are two types of debugging methods for traditional single-core processors: software and hardware. The most commonly used open source tools for software debugging methods include GNU Debugger (GDB, GNU Debugger). The software runs on the operating system, and monitors and controls the processor that needs t...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

This method is applicable to the situation where the TAP module can be modified, and the software debugging will change greatly due to the change of the number of small cores, and the reusability is not good.

When the number of cores is large, too many connections from the TLM module will cause great difficulties to the physical design of the chip backend.

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