A Visual Debugging Environment For Embedded System Based On V850E/MS1

Along with the rapid development of microelectronics and computer technology, embedded systems have been applied to many fields. Embedded systems have become the brightest star in information industry; so many corporations introduced processors fit for a variety of applications to grab the market of embedded chip. The V850E/MS1 chip produced by NEC is a new 32-bit RISC processor which has been widely used in industrial control, power electronics, medical devices, consumer electronics and so on. The research on visual embedded debugger for V850E/MS1 embedded processors is still in its infancy, and many key technologies are waiting to be further studied.Visual embedded debugger as embedded development tools are being used for embedded software debugging and testing. In the field of embedded debugger, China is relatively backward. While developing embedded systems, we commonly rely on the debuggers from abroad, so the in-depth study on embedded debugger is of great significance. This paper describes a visual embedded debugger based on V850E/MS1 emulator that frees users from burning the target code to the target machine and allows for the on-host source-level debugging, thus it shortens the development time of embedded software and improves the quality.The paper first describes the technology of building the kernel of embedded debugger which is based on V850E/MS1 emulator. The debug kernel is the core components of the visual embedded debugger. The technology of 'component assembly' has been used to design the kernel of debugger, thus enables the kernel of the emulator-based debugging to adapt to a variety of simulators, as well as the needs of scalable debugging features. The ELF file format and debugging information storage are outlined while the realization of the kernel source-level debugging principles and performance are analyzed to detail.Second, this paper describes the front-end technology of the visual embedded debugger which is based on the Eclipse platform and CDT plugging. By researching the components of CDT and MI protocol, the technology to achieve a customized CDT debug kernel is proposed. Finally, according to user needs, the design of visual embedded debugger based on V850E/MS1 system is implemented. The prototype system realizes the functions such as single-step debugging, variable storage, memory and stack browsing.