Applications of On-chip Trace on Debugging Embedded Processor

On-chip trace system records run-time information of the embedded processor with special hardware to overcome the obstacle of non-intrusive debug and optimization of traditional techniques. This paper explores the mechanism, characteristics and applications of on-chip trace technique with TraceDo, an on-chip trace system of a multi-core SoC. The functions and structures of TraceDo are introduced, the working process of path trace is explained and the trace applications with two cases of debug and optimization are also discussed.