User manual

EEP and Emulation Header User’s Guide
DS50002243A-page 6  2014 Microchip Technology Inc.
1.2 WHY DO I NEED AN EMULATION HEADER?
Although some devices have on-board debug circuitry to allow you to debug your code,
you often lose device resources to debugging, i.e., debugging requires the use of two
I/O lines, plus Vdd, Vss and Vpp, to communicate with the device. Using a debug
header can free up these resources for your application.
Using an emulation header gives you the benefits of a debug header plus new and
powerful debugging features. These features give you more choices to pick the right
debugging feature(s) to efficiently solve the debugging task at hand.
1.2.1 Advances Debug Features
Advanced debug features and benefits are:
• Real-time Hardware Instruction Trace (RI)
- Provides full instruction execution information up to 32 MHz
- Trace through Reset conditions
- Trace buffer with optional stall
• Hardware Address/Data Breakpoints - 32 maximum
- Break on program memory fetch or data read/writes
- Program or data address range breakpoints
- Data masking for bit-field breakpoints
- Data comparison breakpoints
- Break on ISR and/or main code
- Break on Pass Count
- Break and Trigger Out or just Trigger Out
- Data break on normal or linear modes
- Break without halting or as a trigger for other events
• Enhanced Event Breakpoints
- Break on execution out of bounds - watches PC
- Break on MCLR Reset
- Break on trigger in signal
• Background Debug
- Settings and breakpoints may be changed in runtime or sleep time
- Faster stepping for lower MCU frequencies compared to -ICE/-ICD parts
• Event Combiners - Four (4) available
- Each event combiner can combine up to eight (8) events
- Generates a halt or Trigger Out
- Modeled on MPLAB ICE 2000 In-Circuit Emulator complex triggers
• Execution Out-Of-Bounds Detection
- Watch for PC values that exceed the available program memory
• Enhanced Stopwatch Cycle Counter
- 32-bit instruction cycle counter
• External Trigger In/Out
- Trigger In: Signal falling edge can cause a Halt or Trigger Out
- Trigger Out: On an event with an enabled trigger, positive pulse is generated
RI = This feature applies to the MPLAB REAL ICE in-circuit emulator only.
For more information on these features, see: Chapter 2. “Emulation Header
Features”.