GRMON2

GRMON2 is a debug monitor for the LEON3 and LEON4 Debug Support Unit (DSU), providing a non-intrusive debug environment on real target hardware. The LEON DSU can be controlled through any AMBA AHB master and GRMON therefore supports communication through a large number of interfaces.

GRMON2 has extended support for multi-core systems, such as the dual-core GR712RC device and the future ESA Next Generation Microprocessor (NGMP).

 

Basic features

GRMON2 supports all features supported by GRMON:

• Read/write access to all LEON registers and memory
• Downloading and execution of LEON applications
• Built-in disassembler and trace buffer management
• Breakpoint and watchpoint management
• Command-line mode or graphical user interface
• Remote connection to GNU debugger (GDB)
• Single word or burst access to AMBA on-chip bus
• GRLIB Plug & Play support
• Auto-probing and initialisation of LEON peripherals and memory settings
• Error injection for fault-tolerant LEON processors
• Supported debug interfaces: PCI, USB, Ethernet, JTAG, UART and SpaceWire
• Common Flash Interface (CFI) compatible Flash PROM programming

 

Advanced features 

GRMON2 also support a wide range of improvements and additions such as:

• Tcl interactive interpretor support

• All commands have been rewritten to support Tcl syntax
• TAB-completion on Tcl variables, procedures, namespaces etc.
• Tcl scripting:

• GRMON commands leave return values for scripting
• Variables are exported that let the user access DSU and debug drivers without using commands
• Start-up scripts

• Extend GRMON:

• custom AMBA cores using new Tcl-driver interface
• easy custom command implementation using Tcl
• install custom handlers (hooks) on certain events

• A new help system, all commands are documented
• Multi-core system support improvements
• Batch scripts take arguments
• Improved TAB-completion
• Improved backtrace
• Improved virtual memory handling
• Improved and faster establishment of connection through debug interface
• Improved processor/system frequency detection accuracy through debug interface
• GDB does not consume the console, i.e. it's possible to inspect registers etc. while GDB is connected
• GDB watchpoint support
• Translates virtual addresses for GDB, e.g. it's possible to debug the Linux kernel
• Expanded register information listing
• Internal design improvement for future support, such as GUI

 

Note

GRMON2 does not support the LEON2 and LEON2FT Debug Support Unit (DSU).

GRMON2 does currently not support a GUI.

Please refer to GRMON for support of the above. 

Supported platforms and system requirements

GRMON is currently provided for platforms: Linux-x86, Windows XP SP3 and Windows 7.

Documentation and download

GRMON2 user manual is available on-line.

Professional and evaluation versions of GRMON2 for Linux and Windows can be obtained from the download page.

 

Example of how Tcl can be used for debugging

The GRMON2 Tcl-scripting capability can be used to support advanced debugging routines. In the example below a Tcl-script is used to profile interrupt latency in a LEON3 system analysing the built-in AMBA AHB trace buffer content which is written to a file from which a graphical representation is created using a standard spread-sheet tool.

 

 Figure: Tcl source code

 

Figure: GRMON2 console output

 

Figure: Graphics generated from GRMON2 output