Subject: StrongARM SA-1110 Emulators

From: David J Croyle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Mar 2000 09:34:49 -0500

Hello,

I am posting this message also to the linux-arm mailing list. I am 
sorry if this may be considered as a mismatched subject, but I am
curious if any readers of this list may have experience or suggestions
on the subject of an emulator for use in arm-linux development projects.

Does anyone have any experience with any products from Sophia
Systems,Inc. ?

Our engineering group is considering their UniSTAC StrongARM SA-1110 ICE
product for use in a product development project here. 

We are using the GNU tools running on Red Hat 6.0 Linux boxes.  I am
concerned at their lack of support for UNIX based development, but they 
seem to be about the only available emulator that I have found so far
for 
the StrongARM SA-1110.
 
Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with this particular
product or with any other Sophia Systems emulator products?

Can anybody recommend an emulator for use with the SA-1110?

Thanks,

David J. Croyle

Foerster Instruments, Inc.

unsubscribe: body of `unsubscribe linux-arm' to [email-masked]
++        Please use [email-masked] for           ++
++                        kernel-related discussions.                      ++

---

From: Paul Koning <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2000 11:01:49 -0500

I don't know what the SA-1110 has to offer an ICE, so I'll just make a 
general comment: the classic ICE approach (monitor all the wires going 
into the CPU) is long obsolete.  It doesn't have any value at all for
CPUs with effective caches.

IF your CPU has built-in mechanisms for ICE-like debugging, such as
trace, watch, break setting mechanisms, then you're in good shape.
These days, those mechanisms are often provided via the JTAG port,
which gives you ICE-like capabilities at extremely low cost (hundreds
of dollars vs. tens of thousands for clasical ICE).

Some CPUs provide watch etc. mechanisms under program control, which
means you can let gdb or equivalent control them.  

When evaluating such things, consider very carefully what the actual
primitives are that exist in the hardware.  For example, the MIPS
RM7000 has functions like this, but when you dig deeper, you find that 
what's actually there is not useful at all (not good enough for real
work).

	paul