Software development isn’t for wimps. Today’s developers have to deal with an intensifying pace of innovation, ever-growing code bases, and increasingly complex hardware. One of the best ways to deal with these challenges is to focus on software interoperability. A highly interoperable platform can make it much easier to start coding faster, migrate legacy code, and future proof software. For example, a platform with a strong history of interoperability will gather OS, tool, and mid...Read More
Users of the next generation of fixed function embedded devices expect the immediate response and rapid boot-up sequences similar to the “always on” features of today’s consumer electronics technology. However, to obtain needed fast start performance, designers must modify or eliminate the typical basic input/output system (BIOS) found on most x86 processor platforms. The normal tasks for the BIOS are to initialize and identify system devices and then locate and execute the bo...Read More
The Intel Developer Forum is this week (September 13-15), and we have some exciting training and demonstrations prepared around firmware and boot loaders for Intel® architecture. Of course, the Embedded group is presenting a course on the Intel® Boot Loader Development Kit (Intel® BLDK) titled Reshaping the Intel® Architecture Firmware Landscape using Intel® Boot Loader Development Kit (Intel® BLDK) for Embedded Designs . Cris Rhodes is a long-time ...Read More
This is my final blog in a 4-part series about JTAG debug for Intel® Architecture (IA) processors. There has been explosive development in this area in the past few months, with the introduction of new IA debug tools from four companies. What makes this significant is that before these four companies entered the fray in 2009 there had been only a single option available to IA developers, which was from Arium. In my previous blogs, I have written about Arium and Wind Rive...Read More
This is my third blog in a series about JTAG debug for Intel® Architecture (IA) processors. If you read my previous blogs you would have picked up on my theme that the embedded developer’s debugger options have greatly expanded over the past few months. For the longest time, the sole choice was Arium . Then in mid-2009 came alternatives from Wind River and Green Hills . When Intel decided to enable additional vendors to provide IA debug, it seems to me t...Read More
I recently blogged about the limited availability of JTAG debug tools for Intel® Architecture (IA) processors and how Intel was working with software and tools companies to expand the developer's options. For many years since the advent of JTAG there had been only a single choice of IA debugger (Arium) and I wrote that previous blog on the heels of the June announcement of a second alternative (Wind River) . Arium is an Affiliate member and Wind River Systems is an Associate mem...Read More
For engineers involved with board bring-up, BIOS programming, OS customization, driver optimization, firmware and low-level software development, JTAG debug is an indispensable component of the developer's toolkit. Looking around the embedded space, I note that the availability and cost of JTAG tools varies widely by processor architecture. It seems that ARM has the most options- I even found a JTAG debugger for ARM on amazon.com selling for $299. In contrast, high-end solutions comman...Read More