Microtek - Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron Emulators

Pentium II, Pentium III, and Celeron Emulators Make Their Debut

January 1, 2000

Microtek International has extended its line of 32-bit high-performance emulators to support the Pentium® II, Pentium® III and Celeron™ processors from Intel. The new emulators offer the same performance, debug features, and pricing that have made PowerPack® emulators the choice of engineering professionals.

Run-time Controls at a Reasonable Price
If your debug issues involve software development on a stable hardware platform, the PowerPack In-Target Probe (ITP) is the tool of choice. This tool provides you with full run-time control features such as Halt, Go, and Step, and the use of breakpoints. The four hardware breakpoints allow you to halt code during execution, or to access specific data variables. The debugger provides source level views of your code when working in C or C++. You can view both source and the underlying assembly simultaneously, which can be useful when facing unusual compiler issues.

Bus Level Trace and Triggering
If your debug issues are more complex than application software development, the PowerPack SW emulator may be your best choice. This emulator adds trace and triggering to the run-time package provided by the PowerPack ITP. With triggering you can create sophisticated real-time event functions that trigger a variety of emulator results. For example, you may want to execute a function three times, then halt when a variable reaches a specific value. The PowerPack triggering system can easily satisfy this type of request.

The PowerPack SW Plus also provides a 256 KB trace of captured bus cycles. This information can be used to determine where a problem occurred. For example, you might need to track a general protection fault. First you would set a breakpoint on the GPF error routine. Then, when the error occurred and the error routine was called, the emulator would break, allowing you to examine the trace to find the location of the error that sent the program to the error routine.

Maximum Trace and Trigger Capability
When working on a new hardware target, the emulator of choice is the PowerPack EA. This emulator adds clock level trace to the list of features available with the PowerPack SW Plus emulator. Clock level trace captures each clock cycle. Since you can view each signal at the point where the sample occurred, you can check each signal in the clock cycle to verify correct behavior. This is an invaluable tool in finding signals that are not within specifications and are causing errors such as intermittent bus faults. The trigger system's clock-level resolution allows you to monitor a particular signal line and ensure it is meeting value, or break emulation as soon as it fails to meet expected value.

Integrated Development Environment Support
Microtek provides a choice of debug environments for use with the emulator.

SLD. For people who have no need for full C++ or VxWorks we offer the SLD interface. This is an interactive window-based system that provides source-level support for debugging. SLD was developed specifically for our emulator, and presents the features in an intuitive manner.

Tornado.The Tornado interface supports Wind River users with a fully integrated development environment. Both Tornado and Tornado II are supported at the system mode level, with "task mode" available soon. This interface brings together Tornado and VxWorks®, along with the full feature set of a high-performance emulator.

This can be extremely useful in the Intel architecture, since most of the support for VxWorks debugging relies on a functioning operating system. Because VxWorks runs in protected mode, there is a significant amount of code that must be error-free (to move from real mode to protected mode), before VxWorks is available. The Microtek emulator allows you to view your code during this transition. This can save time with new hardware, when you are uncertain if software is operating correctly.

CAD-UL. For C++ development we recommend the CAD-UL interface. This debugger provides complete C++ support and a superior set of development tools. It is fully integrated, allowing you to remain within the CAD-UL integrated development environment while working with the compiler, linker, and debugger. If you have purchased the PowerPack SW Plus or EA emulator, the interface includes trace and trigger control windows. This allows Microtek to provide the complete feature set of the emulator without affecting the basic CAD-UL IDE.

The CAD-UL interface is further enhanced by integrating with Microtek through Microsoft COM technology. This allows you, for example, to store and analyze collected data using standard Microsoft applications. You can use an Access? database to store and manipulate your trace data. You can use an Excel? spreadsheet to store trace data and use its graphing capability to enhance the trace output. Coupled with the ability to interface to VBScript, JScript, and PerlScript, the emulator provides more power than ever before.

Provide Required Flexibility in Packages Supported
Microtek is committed to supporting Intel processor packages as soon as they are introduced. We currently support the Slot 1, Socket 370, Pentium Mini-Module, Pentium MMC2, Low-Power Pentium Ball Grid Array, Pentium III Micro Ball Grid Array, and the new Low-Power Pentium II Mini-Module. If your package design is not listed, please contact Microtek.

PC Host Requirements
A Pentium or better PC with a minimum of 32 MB of RAM, a SVGA or better color monitor, CD-ROM drive, free serial port or network connection, and a mouse. Operating Systems supported are Windows?95, 98, 2000, and NT.

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