Embedded Sense

EOnCE comprises of 6 core components.

• EOnCE Controller
• Event Counter
• Event Detection Unit (EDU)
• Synchronizer
• Event Selector
• Trace Unit

EOnCE Controller:

Without this contoller JTAG wont be able to access or program EOnCE. Using this interface we can put the core into debug mode & also write into EOnCE registers, basically this is the JTAG gateway into EOnCE.

Event Counter

Counters can count various events! These events can be configured by setting its registers. For example, it can be the number of times a watchpoint was hit or the number of instructions executed, or any external events like L1 cache hits, cache miss etc.

Event Detection Unit (EDU)

EDU forms the core logic of EOnCE, this module can be configured to set breakpoints, watchpoints, or to monitor the address on the data bus etc. EDU can also send a signal to Even Counter so that it can count the number of times an address was referenced or a data was accessed etc.

Synchronizer

This module is required to synchronize external signals with the internal clock. There are a set of general purpose signals which can be programmed to do various operations. For example, we can configure the General purpose signal EE0 to configure the EDU whenever it is asserted through JTAG.

Event Selector

This is the last unit in the debugging chain, in other words this decides what action needs to be taken when an event is generated by EDU or Event Counter. The action can be something like putting the Core to the debug mode, or it can be starting a program trace, or raising of a debug exception etc.

Trace Unit

As the name suggests, this is the hardware which monitors the program counter and generates the call trace.

Below Pic depicts the EOnCE controller and its component modules.