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MIPS® Navigator Console





The MIPS® Navigator™ Console software is a comprehensive command line interface for the MIPS Navigator EJTAG probe family. The software when used with the GNU GDB debugger software provides a full-featured debug environment for complete control of all MIPS 32-bit cores along with a source-level command set for easy debugging of C and C++ source code.

The Navigator Console is based on the Tcl/Tk scripting language. It provides control over all CPU resources including reading and modifying all registers, reading/writing memory and caches, controlling the translation lookaside buffer (TLB), on-chip SRAM, and shadow registers. It provides complete run control of the CPU including go, halt, single step, and setting/clearing software and hardware breakpoints. The Navigator Console provides control over hardware trace setup and viewing the resulting trace buffer when implemented on the processor.

The GDB Console is used with the probe operating software to provide source-level debugging of compiled code for MIPS cores. GDB commands include the setting of breakpoints by source line, viewing stack frames which includes local variables and passed parameters, printing variable values, and stepping by source line, into or over functions, and viewing mixed source and assembly code.

 

The Navigator Console command set includes commands for:

  • Configuring the probe and target
  • Supporting all MIPS32 cores including: 4K, 4KE, 4Ks, M4K, M4Kc, M14K, M14Kc, 24K, 24KE, 34K, 74K, 1004K, 1074K
  • Starting, stopping, stepping, and resetting the CPU (run control)
  • Loading code into memory, including flash programming
  • Setting and managing hardware and software breakpoints
  • Setting and managing complex breakpoints including primed, qualified, and tuples when available in the core
  • Viewing processor and system information
  • Viewing and modifying registers
  • Accessing and modifying memory
  • Viewing and manipulating the caches
  • Viewing and manipulating the translation lookaside buffer (TLB)
  • Setting triggers for hardware breakpoint conditions
  • Setting and controlling PDtrace or iFlowtrace acquisition modes
  • Viewing resulting on-chip or off-chip trace results in a readable format
  • Controlling, configuring, and sending data to the EJTAG tap register
  • RegEdit view allows the user to view and modify registers, including GPRs, CP0 coprocessor registers, and user-specified peripheral registers down to the bit field level
Commands input to the Navigator Console are based on Tcl/Tk scripts. This widely used scripting language allows you to define new commands that are used frequently and automatically load them as script files when Navigator Console starts up. Scripts can be written that include sophisticated test routines which can be run to provide automated regression testing of an SoC design. Users can write short target programs with the one-line assembler that are then loaded and run in the target at full speed, without needing compiler or assembler tools. Routines to exercise peripheral hardware and generate "scope loops" for testing I/O can be written and run. These can all be made into procs (procedures) and put into script files that can be source'ed and run, preserving work by only needing to writing them once. Thus, the capabilities of Tcl/Tk scripting makes the console interface and probe particularly useful for chip and target bring up and testing.


Navigator Console session

The Navigator Console also supports use of the probe with the GDB source-level debugger.



For a more sophisticated source-level interface, the Navigator ICS with Eclipse based debug launch interface is available which encapsulates the features of the Navigator Console software, while adding the Eclipse graphical interface.




Navigator Console requires an X86 PC with a minimum of 1 Gbyte of memory.

Operating systems supported are Windows® XP (32-bit), Windows® 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)/CentOS Version 4 (32-bit) and Version 5 (32-bit and 64-bit)