I read here about ARM programming, pag 252, about ARM debug hardware, but I don't understand which hardware physically tools is used in practice.
ARMv8 processors provide hardware features that enable debug tools to provide significant levels of control over core activity and to non-invasively collect large amounts of data about program execution. There are two broad classes of hardware features, invasive and non-invasive.
Invasive debug provides facilities that enable you to stop programs and step through them line by line, either at the C source level, or stepping through assembly language instructions. This can be by means of an external device that connects to the core using the chip JTAG pins, or by means of debug monitor code.
Can you show me this external device ? I suppose it is a debugger but how model is used ? After this debugger is connected to a PC, how software is used with this debugger ?
I need to debug an embedded ARM baseband processor.
Best Answer
The programmers in question are external devices that allow a developer to connect a PC running the debug tools to the embedded processor under debug. As stated in the quoted text in the question, the electrical connection is made via JTAG or SWD interface pins on the device. Most often these pins are connected to a header on the PCB where the device is mounted.
The programmers shown below connect to the PC using USB. Other programmers / debuggers can connect to the PC using Ethernet or other electrical interfaces.
A representative list of available debuggers can be found in this Wikipedia Article.