Patent application number | Description | Published |
20080235538 | Techniques for generating a trace stream for a data processing apparatus - A data processing apparatus and method are provided for generating a trace stream. The data processing apparatus comprises logic for producing data elements, and trace logic for producing a stream of trace elements representative of at least some of the data elements. The trace logic has trace generation logic operable to generate trace elements for inclusion in the stream, and is further arranged to generate trace timing indicators for inclusion in the stream. Each trace timing indicator indicates the elapse of one or more processing timing intervals, the processing timing interval being a predetermined plurality of clock cycles. | 09-25-2008 |
20090006934 | Triggering diagnostic operations within a data processing apparatus - A data processing apparatus | 01-01-2009 |
20090089626 | Techniques for generating a trace stream for a data processing apparatus - Trace circuitry, and a method of operating such trace circuitry, are provided for generating a trace stream indicative of activities of monitored circuitry of a data processing apparatus. The monitored circuitry produces data elements indicative of those activities, and the trace circuitry comprises trace element generation circuitry which is responsive to at least some of the data elements produced by the monitored circuitry to generate trace elements representative of those data-elements, with the trace elements generated being dependent on a selected trace mode of operation of the trace circuitry. Compression circuitry is then arranged to apply an encoding operation to a sequence of trace elements in order to produce a packet whose bit pattern represents the sequence of trace elements, and to cause that packet to be output in the trace stream, the encoding operation applied being dependent on a current compression scheme associated with the compression circuitry. Whilst in the selected trace mode of operation, the compression circuitry is responsive to a compression change stimulus to change the current compression scheme from a first compression scheme to a second compression scheme whose bit pattern encoding space overlaps the bit pattern encoding space of the first compression scheme, such that following the change of compression scheme any further packets produced whilst in the selected trace mode of operation are produced in accordance with the second compression scheme. Such an approach has been found to provide improved compression efficiency thereby reducing the volume of trace data produced. | 04-02-2009 |
20090177928 | Apparatus, Method and Computer Program Product for Generating Trace Data - A data processing apparatus is disclosed, said data processing apparatus comprising a plurality of devices, trace logic associated with at least one of said plurality of devices, and tagging logic associated with at least one of said plurality of devices, said tagging logic being operable to: select at least one item, said at least one item comprising an activity to be monitored; provide said at least one selected item with tag data identifying said at least one item as an item to be monitored; and said trace logic being operable to: detect tagged items processed by said at least one device; and output trace information relating to at least some of said detected tagged items. | 07-09-2009 |
20090193297 | Diagnostic context construction and comparison - A data processing system 1 has a processor core | 07-30-2009 |
20110029823 | Techniques for generating a trace stream for a data processing apparatus - A data processing apparatus and method are provided for generating a trace stream. The data processing apparatus comprises logic for producing data elements, and trace logic for producing a stream of trace elements representative of at least some of the data elements. The trace logic has trace generation logic operable to generate trace elements for inclusion in the stream, and is further arranged to generate trace timing indicators for inclusion in the stream. Each trace timing indicator indicates the elapse of one or more processing timing intervals, the processing timing interval being a predetermined plurality of clock cycles. | 02-03-2011 |
20110167247 | System for efficiently tracing data in a data processing system - A data processing apparatus is provided comprising prediction circuitry for predicting a response of the data processing circuitry at at least one given execution point to execution of a program instruction; tracing circuitry for tracing operation of the data processing apparatus for outputting a prediction indicator indicating whether or not the predicted response is correct; a data store configured to store information relating to the predicted response of said data processing circuitry at the given execution point for use by at least one of said prediction logic and said tracing circuitry a later execution point; and a history buffer configured to store historical information with regard to one or more entries of the data store at a corresponding execution point previous to the given execution point to enable restoration of said data store to a state corresponding to said previous execution point. | 07-07-2011 |
20110202801 | Trace data priority selection - An integrated circuit | 08-18-2011 |
20110231461 | Identifier selection - A data processing apparatus is provided which is configured to select 2 | 09-22-2011 |
20110231691 | Synchronization in data processing layers - A data processing apparatus is provided having a hierarchy of layers comprising at least two data processing layers, each data processing layer configured to receive data and to generate processed data for passing to a next lower layer in said hierarchy, according to a protocol specific to that data processing layer. Each data processing layer is configured intermittently to add synchronization information to its processed data, the synchronization information providing semantic information required to interpret the processed data. Each data processing layer is further configured to output its synchronization information in response to a synchronization request signal received from a lower layer in said hierarchy, and at least one data processing layer is configured, when outputting its synchronization information, to issue its synchronization request signal to a higher layer in the hierarchy. | 09-22-2011 |
20110314340 | Correlating trace data streams - A data processing apparatus is provided with trace circuitry for generating a plurality of trace streams including an instruction trace stream | 12-22-2011 |
20120185734 | Tracing of a data processing apparatus - A trace unit, diagnostic apparatus and data processing apparatus are provided for tracing of conditional instructions. The data processing apparatus generates instruction observed indicators indicating execution of conditional instructions and result output indicators indicating output by the data processing apparatus of results of executing respective conditional instructions. The instruction observed indicators and result output indicators are received by a trace unit that is configured to output conditional instruction trace data items and independently output conditional result trace data items enabling separate trace analysis of conditional instructions and corresponding conditional results by a diagnostic apparatus. The instruction observed indicator is received at the trace unit in a first processing cycle of the data processing apparatus whilst result output indicator is received at in a second different processing cycle. | 07-19-2012 |
20140019501 | IDENTIFIER SELECTION - A data processing apparatus is provided which is configured to select 2 | 01-16-2014 |
20140101491 | TRACING OF A DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS - A trace unit, diagnostic apparatus and data processing apparatus are provided for tracing of conditional instructions. The data processing apparatus generates instruction observed indicators indicating execution of conditional instructions and result output indicators indicating output by the data processing apparatus of results of executing respective conditional instructions. The instruction observed indicators and result output indicators are received by a trace unit that is configured to output conditional instruction trace data items and independently output conditional result trace data items enabling separate trace analysis of conditional instructions and corresponding conditional results by a diagnostic apparatus. The instruction observed indicator is received at the trace unit in a first processing cycle of the data processing apparatus whilst result output indicator is received at in a second different processing cycle. | 04-10-2014 |
20140195786 | TRACING SPECULATIVELY EXECUTED INSTRUCTIONS - A trace unit for generating items of trace data indicative of processing activities of a processor executing a stream of instructions, the unit includes trace circuitry for monitoring a behaviour of the processor; storage circuitry for storing current trace control data for controlling the trace circuitry; a data store for storing at least some of the trace control data; the trace circuitry being configured to store the trace control data in the data store in response to detection of execution of the group of instructions, wherein the trace circuitry is responsive to detecting the at least one processor cancelling at least one group of the speculatively executed instructions to retrieve at least some of the trace control data stored in the data store for the group of instructions executed before the cancelled speculatively executed instructions and to store the retrieved trace control data in the storage circuitry. | 07-10-2014 |
20140237300 | DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS AND TRACE UNIT - A data processing apparatus has processing circuitry for executing program instructions and trace circuitry for generating trace data indicating processing activities of the processing circuitry. The trace circuitry may detect a lockup state of the processing circuitry in which the processing circuitry does not make forward progress of execution of the program instructions. In response to detecting the lockup state, the trace circuitry may include in the trace data a lockup identifier indicating that the lockup state has occurred. | 08-21-2014 |
20140281433 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR TRACING EXCEPTIONS - A data processing apparatus comprises processing circuitry for executing a stream of instructions, and exception handling circuitry for selecting, from one or more exceptions, an exception to be handled by the processing circuitry. The unselected exceptions are referred to as pending exceptions. The data processing apparatus further comprises trace generating circuitry that generates trace data packets in dependence on activity of the processing circuitry. The trace generating circuitry detects pending exceptions and, if an exception is detected to be pending, includes an indication of the pending exception in at least one trace data packet. By tracking when a particular exception is pended, rather than when it is selected for handling by the processing circuitry, it is possible to more precisely determine when the exception occurred, as opposed to when it is finally handled. | 09-18-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20110314342 | Tracing speculatively executed instructions - A trace unit for generating items of trace data indicative of processing activities of a processor executing a stream of instructions, the stream of instructions comprising a plurality of groups of instructions, the processor executing at least some of the instructions speculatively is disclosed. The trace unit comprises: trace circuitry for monitoring a behaviour of the processor; storage circuitry for storing current trace control data for controlling the trace circuitry; a data store for storing at least some of the trace control data; the trace circuitry being configured to store the trace control data in the data store in response to detection of execution of the group of instructions; the trace circuitry being responsive to detecting the at least one processor cancelling at least one group of the speculatively executed instructions to retrieve at least some of the trace control data stored in the data store for the group of instructions executed before the cancelled speculatively executed instructions and to store the retrieved trace control data in the storage circuitry. | 12-22-2011 |
20120030520 | Storage and output of trace data - A trace output unit for collecting, buffering and outputting trace data generated by trace circuitry monitoring processing activities of a data processing apparatus is described. The trace output unit comprises an input for receiving a stream of trace data; a plurality of data stores arranged in parallel with each other for storing the trace data; and storage control circuitry for controlling storage of items of the trace data in the data stores. The control circuitry is configured to route the trace items to selected ones of the data stores and to store control data identifying related trace items stored in different data stores. The trace output unit further comprises output control circuitry configured to identify related trace items stored in different data stores from the stored control data and to recombine the related trace items from different data stores to form an output trace data stream. | 02-02-2012 |
20120066552 | Data processing apparatus, trace unit and diagnostic apparatus - A trace circuit | 03-15-2012 |
20120110387 | TRACE SYNCHRONIZATION - A data processing apparatus having one or more trace data sources. At least one of said trace data sources includes a trace data generator responsive to activity in monitored circuitry to generate trace data representing said activity. A synchronization marker generator is coupled to the trace data generator and operates to generate a synchronization marker and insert the synchronization marker into the trace data stream. A controller is coupled to the synchronization marker generator to generate and insert a synchronization marker into the trace data stream. The controller controls initiation in dependence on behavior of the data processing apparatus downstream of the trace data generator. In this way, the downstream behavior of the data processing apparatus can be made to influence the rate and timing of insertion of synchronization markers into a trace data stream. | 05-03-2012 |
20120166887 | Monitoring multiple data transfers - Trace circuitry for monitoring a behaviour of at least one processor and for generating items of trace data indicative of processing activities of said at least one processor executing a stream of instructions is disclosed. The stream of instructions comprises different types of instructions, each type specifying a different operation, at least one type of instruction comprising a multiple transfer instruction specifying a plurality of data transfers. The trace circuitry is responsive to detection of the at least one processor executing at least one of the multiple transfer instructions and to an indication that at least one of the plurality of data transfers is to be traced: to output for each of the data transfers to be traced a value indicative of a predetermined index value associated with the data transfer, the at least one multiple transfer instruction having predetermined index values associated with each of the plurality of data transfers, such that the predetermined index value provides individual identification of each of the data transfers. | 06-28-2012 |
20120185676 | Processing apparatus, trace unit and diagnostic apparatus - A processing circuit | 07-19-2012 |
20130070879 | GENERATING A REGULARLY SYNCHRONISED COUNT VALUE - A count value generator includes an input for receiving a synchronising count value, a counter configured to increment at a local frequency, the local frequency being faster than the synchronising frequency, and an interpolator for determining a frequency ratio between the local frequency and the synchronising frequency and for determining an increment value for the counter dependent on a relative amount of a maximum value of the counter with respect to the frequency ratio is disclosed. The counter generates a count value including a predetermined number of bits representing integer values and output as the lower order bits of the output count value and additional lower order bits that represent fractional portions of the integer values. The counter includes output circuitry for outputting the synchronising count value and the predetermined number of bits representing integer values generated by the counter as the lower order bits of the count value. | 03-21-2013 |
20130339686 | PROCESSING APPARATUS, TRACE UNIT AND DIAGNOSTIC APPARATUS - A processing circuit is responsive to at least one conditional instruction to perform a conditional operation in dependence on a current value of a subset of at least one condition flag. A trace circuit is provided for generating trace data elements indicative of operations performed by the processing circuit. When the processing circuit | 12-19-2013 |