Microchip’s PIC64GX series includes four SiFive RISC-V U54 64-bit CPU cores supporting symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing (SMP/AMP) as well as deterministic latencies. Their five-stage in-order pipeline is not vulnerable to Meltdown and Spectre exploits. Another 64-bit SiFive RISC-V E51 CPU serves as a monitor processor core.

Lauterbach’s TRACE32® development tools enable hardware-accelerated debugging and real-time tracing of the RISC-V processors and other cores implemented on the PIC64GX chip. TRACE32® tools consist of the universal PowerView debugging and tracing software as well as debug and trace accelerator modules. While Lauterbach’s intelligent PowerDebug modules provide the highest available download speeds and smallest response times for efficient debugging and test automation, PowerTrace real-time trace modules provide full insights into what the processors and other cores of the system are doing without impacting its real-time performance in any way. Trace analysis including code coverage measurements can support bringing embedded designs to market faster, safer, and more reliably than ever.

TRACE32® enables simultaneous debugging and tracing of the RISC-V processors and other cores in a PIC64GX MPU; a unique capability to cover the whole system, regardless of whether the system is SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessing), AMP (Asymmetric Multiprocessing), or iAMP (Integrated Asymmetrical Multiprocessing). Lauterbach’s innovative iAMP debug and trace technology enables to debug multicore systems with identical CPU instruction sets in just one TRACE32® PowerView GUI.

PIC64GX MPUs support multiple open source, commercial, and real-time operating systems including Linux®, Canonical® Ubuntu® OS and Zephyr® OS. The unique OS-awareness feature of TRACE32® provides key insights into applications and the operating systems they are running on, regardless of whether it’s a rich operating system, an RTOS, or a mixture of all. TRACE32® OS-aware debugging can query and display all OS objects such as threads, message queues, and more. With this, engineers can better understand how these are behaving and utilizing chip resources.

“PIC64GX 64-bit microprocessors are a great choice for secure embedded-compute platforms,” says Norbert Weiss, Managing Director at Lauterbach GmbH. “With the latest support of TRACE32®, we enable engineers to develop their applications with Microchips’ PIC64GX MPUs and our market-leading debug and trace tools right from the start."

“Our PIC64GX MPUs expand Microchip’s embedded processing capabilities to support compute-intensive, real-time applications,” said Shakeel Peera, vice president of marketing and strategy for Microchip’s FPGA business unit. “Lauterbach is well-respected in the industry and its support of the PIC64GX family will allow developers to utilize TRACE32’s powerful debugging and development tools to enhance their software and accelerate time to market.”

Lauterbach’s TRACE32® development tools enable developers of embedded-compute platforms to evolve their applications based on PIC64GX SoCs even faster and easier.

More information about Lauterbach’s TRACE32® Multicore Debugging and Tracing you can find here: https://www.lauterbach.com/features/multicore-debugging-and-tracing

More information about Lauterbach’s TRACE32® OS-awareness you can find here: https://www.lauterbach.com/features/os-awareness