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Picoblaze Debugger

Debugging With ModelSim

Simulate your hardware and assembler code together. Test code changes in seconds. Debug line by line or run to break points. Very simple setup makes for a productive solution, even for non-software engineers. Picoblaze Debugger was developed using ModelSimXE III/Starter, part of Xilinx Webpack.

Simple Setup

• Automatically finds PicoBlaze instances and associated program BRAMs
• Integrated PicoBlaze Assembler
• Xilinx or Mediatronix instruction styles supported
• Code changes written to program BRAM without stopping ModelSim

Displays

• PSM File with line numbers and instruction addresses
• Next instruction highlighted
• Program Counter
• Zero Flag
• Carry Flag
• Registers
• Mouseover popup register, constant, flag and address label information
• Popup values in binary, decimal, hexadecimal and ASCII

Functions

• Click to set/clear break points
• Permanent and temporary breakpoints
• Run single step
• Run to breakpoints
• PSM code changes written to BRAM within ModelSim
• Function key shortcuts for speed
• Break points loaded from PSM file comment tags
• PicoBlaze state report including Scratch Pad Memory

Download

Try your designs with Picoblaze Debugger.

The Picoblaze Debugger is very simple to use. Just take a few minutes to browse the User Guide. Please send feedback and feature requests by email.

Evaluation

Without a licence file the application runs in Evaluation Mode with all the features above. The most productive PicoBlaze engineers have Full licences unlocking these advanced features:

• Step over CALL instructions
• Interactive program counter
• Interactive status flags
• Interactive registers
• Interactive Scratch Pad RAM
• PicoBlaze Reset
• Increased Popup Information

Toggling a control flag before conditional instructions forces PicoBlaze to take the other branch. This can bypass long timing loops and force routines to run that would be difficult to contrive using the testbench.

Changing the program counter can be useful for testing obscure corners of your program or forcing interrupts. Particular values may be written to registers and scratch pad memory before forcing the program counter.

Unlock the Full PicoBlaze Debugger by requesting a Full Licence from IvySim. We will send a temporary licence file, usually within a day, when you email the Ethernet or Wireless MAC address of your computer.

New Features

We spend a lot of time testing software (and programmable hardware). Verification is a core skill. However, we do miss things. So if you find a bug please send email with as much information as possible. Include anything relevant:

• Operating System
• ModelSim version
• HDL flavour (Verilog/VHDL)
• PSM flavour (Xilinx/Mediatronix)
• Assembler message
• Description of bug

Feature Requests

This project is active again and, with increasing licence revenues, has a budget for improvement. Please email requests for features and improvements you would find useful.

Version 2.3 is Windows only and has not been tested with Verilog. If there is demand for Linux or Verilog support then the development work can be done.

For example. Many requests were made for Mediatronix syntax support. Now the parser reads both original Xilinx and Mediatronix style PSM syntax. In fact there are two parsers and the appropriate one is chosen automatically. Hybrid syntax is not supported nor encouraged so that PSM files will also parse with either Xilinx or Mediatronix assemblers.

User Guide

Xilinx and PicoBlaze are trademarks of Xilinx Inc. Mediatronix is a trademark of Mediatronix.