ARM RealView ICE
The ARM RealView ICE product (RVICE) is an ICE unit for all available ARM cores. It requires the RealView Debugger to control it. It includes the following:
- High speed code download (0.5 Mbyte/sec at standard 10 MHz JTAG speed)
- High speed single stepping (hold down the F10 key!)
- Probe length up to 2 metres with differential signalling
- Ethernet and USB operation*
- Plug in Trace module adds trace functionality
- Supports the JTAG debug communications channel
- Supports up to 50 MHz JTAG clock (e.g. for ARM10)
- Controls multiple cores in a synchronised manner
- Network operation allows the unit to be used by multiple developers without unplugging and rearranging hardware
*USB support requires RVI firmware 1.2 (or later) and RVDS v2.1.1 or later. USB support is only available on Windows.
RVICE supports Windows and Unix (Linux / Solaris) host platforms, and requires RealView Debugger.
Contact us at devtools at bluewatersys dot com for more information and a quotation.
High Performance ICE
ARM RealView ICE takes over where ARM's hugely popular Multi-ICE left off. ARM has taken on board user feedback and has produced a product which improves on all of Multi-ICE's shortcomings. This unit has a number of new features:
- Even higher performance - around 500 Kbytes/sec download speed on most chips (vs up to 100 Kbytes/sec with Multi-ICE)
- Ethernet and USB interface (v.s parallel port with Multi-ICE)
- Longer probe lengths (v.s. about 10 cm with Multi-ICE)
ARM RealView ICE contains a high peformance ARM9 processor as well as dedicated hardware acceleration. This allows it to drive the JTAG interface at maximum speed and with maximum efficiency, since it does not rely on PC interrupt performance to respond to events from the target chip. The PC simply instructs the ICE unit on what is required - all the chip-specific driver intelligence is in the RealView ICE units itself.
Upgradability
One of the great things about Multi-ICE was its flexibility: it could work with any ARM core and even program flash and FPGA devices. At a pinch it could be used to debug other cores, such as DSPs. And Mutli-ICE support for newer ARM cores (such as the ARM9E) was provided by way of a simple PC software upgrade.
RealView ICE carries on this tradition, although the software upgrade must now be down in the ICE unit itself. You can obtain a list of supported cores and download updates and new cores to the unit. Each driver is optimised to support that chip efficiently, to obtain the best performance. ARM provides drivers for most available ARM chips at the time of sale.
Reliability and Functionality
ARM RealView ICE is a reliable, solid product with plenty of functionality. If you have only a few production boards and a number of developers wanting to try out firmware, RealView ICE is for you. Its network operation allows different developers to connect to the ICE one at a time without any unplugging and plugging in of cables.
RealView ICE supports cores with low voltage operation. It is protected against static electricity and erroneous connection (for example a track fault on your target board will not blow up the unit, although your target board itself may be less forgiving). RealView ICE is packaged in a solid and compact box with a universal power supply.
The following cores are currently supported (February 2005):
- ARM7TDMI, ARM7TDMI-S, ARM720T
- ARM920T, ARM922T, ARM926EJ-S, ARM940T, ARM946E-S, ARM966E-S
- ARM1136JF-S and ARM1136J-S
- Note: Intel XScale support is not present in ARM RealView ICE and we understand that there are currently no plans to add it. XScale has a very different debug implementation from other ARM chips - currently for this you must use Multi-ICE.
RealView ICE (and RealView Debugger) currently supports these non-ARM cores:
- DSPGroup OakDSP
- DSPGroup TeakLiteDSP
- DSPGroup Teak
- Motorola M56621
- LSI Logic ZSP400
