Hitex x86 Developers Seminar University of Warwick - Friday November 19th 1999
	The Hitex x86 Seminar was the fourth to be run at Warwick University, and this year the venue was Radcliffe House, a dedicated conference centre situated on the main campus. Delegates were treated to a full day of presentations and live demonstrations from five leading suppliers of x86 silicon, development tools and system software, specifically, Hitex, AMD, CAD-UL, Phar Lap Software and General Software. The audience of 50 people was drawn from a wide variety of UK companies all either engaged in existing developments based on the x86 architecture, or contemplating starting one up in the near future. For the first time there was a presentation from an existing Hitex customer; Mr. W. Davy, Technical Director of Synectix Ltd. kindly agreed to speak about his experiences of developing software under the Phar Lap TNT Embedded ToolSuite using Hitex emulators.   All delegates received the following items to take away: A printed copy of the slides presented Technical "White Papers" from the presenters Product Literature from the presenters Demonstration software on disc   Agenda: The agenda for the day’s proceedings was as follows: 9.00-9.30 Coffee & Registration 9.30-10.00 Welcome & Introduction Hitex 10.00-10.30 Embedded Silicon & SC520 AMD 10.30-11.00 SC520 & XDB CAD-UL 11.00-11.15 Coffee/Tea 11.15-12.30 TNT ETS Phar Lap Software 12.30-1.30 Lunch 1.30-2.30 EBIOS General Software 2.30-3.15 Debugging Solutions Hitex, Configuring EBIOS Hitex 3.15-3.30 Coffee/Tea 3.30-4.15 Code Quality Hitex, Ristanovic DA-C Hitex 4.15-4.45 Code Coverage with XDB CAD-UL 4.45-5.00 Customer Presentation Synectix 5.00 Feedback session and questions 5.15 Close   Live Demonstrations: AMD SC520 Evaluation Board CAD-UL Code coverage under XDB-MON General Software BIOSStart configuration utility Hitex DProbeP5 in-circuit emulator Hitex DProbe386EX In-Circuit Emulator Phar Lap WEB CAM ETS Networking demo Phar Lap Writing and debugging ETS graphical interfaces   Presenters (in order of appearance): Mike Beach Hitex (UK) Ltd. John McCormick AMD (UK) Stephen Blair Chappell CAD-UL Ltd. Chris van Buren CAD-UL Ltd. Robert Martin Phar Lap Software, Inc. Dale Fittes Hitex (UK) Ltd. Todd Currie General Software, Inc. Steve Robbins General Software, Inc. Trevor Martin Hitex (UK) Ltd. Bill Davy Synectix Ltd.   Presentations: Here follows a brief synopsis of the day’s presentations:   Introduction and Hitex overview (Mike Beach) Mike welcomed the delegates and presenters to the seminar, and previewed the day’s agenda. He encouraged delegates to view the many live demonstrations which were arranged around the seminar room, and also invited them to participate in the question and answer session at the end of the presentations. He went on to give an overview of Hitex’ operations in Germany, in the UK and throughout the world, including its two major divisions, the Automation Group and Developments Tools Group. Mike concluded with a detailed look at Hitex UK, including its employee structure and market focus.   E86 Family overview (John McCormick) AMD are an industry leader in the development and manufacturer of embedded x86 processors, offering a wide choice of silicon solutions, including the 16-bit Am186 E-series processor range, the ELAN 32-bit SC300 and SC400 and the new SC520 32-bit embedded processor. The SC520 is AMD’s latest offering and is based on their highly successful 32-bit Am5x86 core, featuring Am486DX5-133 CPU with 16K cache, FPU and the new AmDebug on-chip debugging interface. The SC520 also provides a host of useful peripherals devices including: 8/16/32-bit Memory Controller, I/O controller, DMA, 8 external chip selects, 22 interrupts, dual 16550 UARTs, Synchronous Serial Interface, Watch Dog and 4 timers. The SC520 is available in three speed/power variants: 133MHz/1.6W, 100MHz/1.3W and 66MHz /1.05W. The SC520 CDP Customer Development Platform is an excellent tool for beginning hardware and software development, featuring PC/AT form factor with ISA and PCI expansion slots, 10MB and 100MB Ethernet ports, Debug and Test Ports, and is supplied with comprehensive documentation including parts lists (BOM) and schematics. AMD supply free CodeKits for the SC520 CDP containing source code for utilities, start-up code, device drivers, and sample embedded applications. John continued his presentation with an overview of the AMD-K6E family of embedded Socket 7 and Super-7 compatible processors, which includes the AMD-K6-II, the AMD-K6-III and also two new devices codenamed Athlon which use the new Slot A connector. The Athlon devices incorporate AMD’s 3-D Now! Graphics accelerators and are ideally suited for embedded applications which require a GUI, such as Phar Lap’s ETS PEG system (featured later in the seminar). AMD has an extensive partnership program providing support for its embedded processor, including Acer Labs, Silicon Integrated Systems and Via Technologies for Socket 7 and Super 7 Chipsets. John concluded his presentation by demonstrating the SC520 Customer Development Platform.   CAD-UL Embedded Tools for AMD SC520 (Stephen Blair-Chappell) Stephen presented an overview of the embedded toolchains, which are available from CAD-UL for x86 real and protected-mode development. The latest of these is a special toolchain for the AMD ElanSC520, comprising a compiler, assembler, system builder, project workbench and debugger. The compiler supports special Opcodes, which provide high-level built-in functions e.g. SC520_vuart_putc() SC520_vuart_getc() The XDB debugger is enhanced to work with the SC520 special features, and provides on-chip execution tracing via AmDebug without additional external hardware. XDB’s built-in SC520 trace disassembler uses the ElanSC520 on-chip trace mechanism and displays the execution trace. The SC520’s on-chip profiling mechanism is fully supported by the XDB debugger, as is AmDebug Branch Tracing which provides XDB with the information it requires to allow the reconstruction of program flow of large applications, without the use of external memory. XDB’s event system can be configured to activate the AmDebug features; for example trace recording can be started and stopped using simple addresses, or for more complex applications, the Task Privilege Levels can be used. This is important in more complex applications where the operating system, device drivers and application code can be run at different privilege levels for extra robustness. Finally, XDB provides full support for debugging SC520 peripheral registers; the BitField editors and on-line help facility enable the developer to configure and monitor the SC520 peripherals in a structured environment. In summary, CAD-UL’s XDB for the ElanSC520 is the first debugger to provide a "software-only" solution for execution trace. It also provides high-level language debugging for C and C++, RTOS-aware and multitasking debugging, run-time profiling and an event system.   Phar Lap’s Embedded ToolSuite for 32-bit Development (Robert Martin & Dale Fittes) Bob opened the presentation with an overview of Phar Lap Software’s company history and current market position. He went on to describe the company’s 5-year association with Hitex, culminating in Hitex gaining Phar Lap’s "Distributor of the Year" Award for 1999. The ETS Embedded ToolSuite is the leading 32-bit, WIN32 compliant RTOS for the x86 platform, and provides a complete environment for developing, debugging and running embedded applications. ETS allows the user to develop his embedded application using familiar, industry standard tools e.g. Microsoft’s C/C++ Developer’s Studio and Aonix ObjectADA. The ETS system comprises a number of main components: a) The ETS Kernel is a 32-bit, multithreaded Real-Time Operating System, which supports a subset of over 200 of the WIN32 API system calls and provides deterministic real-time performance via synchronization objects, events, critical sections, mutexes, semaphores and waitable timers. The kernel runs on all 32-bit x86 CPU’s from Intel, AMD, Cyrix/NS, IDT and others. b) Embedded Studio Express: This is a software utility which extends the MS Developers Studio to build, test and run embedded programs on a remote target system. It contains an ETS Project Wizard which guides the user through the main steps of developing an embedded program, and also contains a Target System Information Browser. c) Visual System Builder – This is a graphical "Point-and-Click" utility for configuration of the ETS monitor and the ETS kernel. A number of pre-built ETS monitors are provided for a wide range of industry-standard targets, but customisation to specific non-standard target hardware is easy to do via the VSB. In addition to the standard features, ETS contains a number of optional components, which further extend the ToolSuite’s capabilities. These include: a) ETS Networking Add-On This is an optional component of the ETS kernel which provides support for TCP/IP based networking running either Ethernet or Serial protocols at either 10Mb/sec or 100Mb/sec. Drivers are provided for a number of industry standard Ethernet controller devices and cards. Other networking features include HTML-on-the-fly, FTP Server, HTTP server, BOOTP, FTP, SLIP, and CSLIP. b) ETS Subsystem This library provides support for an MS-DOS compatible file system running on IDE Hard Drives, Flash File system, RAM drives, ATA Flash Drives, RFA Flash drives, and Floppy drives. Additional components include a floating point emulator and a DLL loader. c) ETS PEG Graphics Library These libraries enable the user to build a full-function GUI for embedded applications. A wealth of useful example graphical objects are provided including: Re-sizeable windows, scroll bars, drop-down menus, progress bars, control panels etc., in addition to full support for bitmaps and text boxes. All of these are aimed at reducing the amount of time and effort required in producing a customised, full-function GUI. Finally, Phar Lap provide a large number of working example programs, configured as Developers Studio projects, together with a comprehensive set of manuals and documentation. The complete TNT Embedded ToolSuite is available for customer evaluation for up to 30 days - please contact Hitex for further details.   General Software EBIOS –(Todd Currie) Todd presented an overview of the features of General Software’s Embedded BIOS and the associated development tools, including the BIOSTART Configuration Utility and the OAK On-Line Adaptation Kit. The EBIOS Generic Adaptation Kit contains full source code for core BIOS functions for a variety of different x86 processors, including 16 and 32-bit variants. Additional BIOS Support Modules are available for chipsets from the following manufacturers: Acer Labs, AMD, Cyrix, Intel, RadiSys and ST Microelectronics. The BIOSTART windows-based configuration utility allows the user to configure the BIOS at the chip, module and board levels, simply by pointing and clicking in the boxes provided.   As an alternative to BIOSTART the On-Line Adaptation Kit provides access to General Software’s WEB-based configuration tools. Similar in functionality to those provided by BIOSTART, these tools enable the user to configure and build a BIOS on-line, and to then download the executable into his target. General Software’s EBIOS incorporates a ROM-based debugger with a command interface similar to SYMDEB or DOS DEBUG. The latest version is EBIOS 5.0, which utilizes a modular architecture providing even greater flexibility in configuring and building an embedded BIOS. Links are provided in V5 for the inclusion of additional 3rd-party software e.g. file systems, OS Loaders etc.   Debugging Solutions – (Dale Fittes, Steve Robbins) Dale Fittes presented a review of some of the different methods available for debugging embedded software, and the various challenges typically encountered at different stages of a project. He went on to compare the relative merits of different debugging tools including monitors, simulators and in-circuit emulators when applied to different debugging tasks, and then presented an overview of the Hitex range of development tools including Monitor Debuggers, In-Circuit Emulators and Target Adapters. Dale then described a series of Masterclasses which Hitex are planning for next year on specialist topics including: Protected Mode Programming Embedded Networking Multitasking Graphics Software Quality BIOS Configuration   Steve Robbins went on to discuss the tools which are available for configuring and debugging a typical embedded PC system comprising a BIOS, device drivers and an OS. He looked at the use of hardware tools, including POST diagnostic cards, Logic Analysers, and In-Circuit Emulators and compared these to the facilities provided by monitor debuggers.   Software Quality Tools (Dale Fittes, Trevor Martin) Dale introduced this subject by looking at some definitions of software quality and listed some recognised standards in the software industry. He went on to examine some famous disasters which are allegedly due to faulty software, and then highlighted some conclusions from the report on the loss of the Ariane 5 spacecraft in 1996. Following this he described a range of tools available from Hitex for improving software quality in embedded systems, including in-circuit emulators with real time execution trace and performance and coverage analysers, and scripting language for test harness generation. Trevor Martin then gave a presentation describing the Ristanovic Development Assistant for C and PL/M, which is a static analyser for source code which understands the various extensions to ANSI C employed by most embedded compilers. Unlike the checking performed by a compiler, the DA-C works with all the project files together to provide much stronger type checking. The DA-C, which contains a Code Browser, can create both traditional flowcharts and Nassi-Schneidermann diagrams from the user’s sourcecode. Calling hierarchy and code metrics are also displayed. The DA-C system is designed to interface with Hitex’ HiTOP98 HLL Debugger, so that an in-circuit emulator or monitor-debugger may be controlled from within the editing environment. The DA-C can also be linked to many popular version control systems.     CAD-UL Code Coverage and Software Checks (Stephen Blair-Chappell and Chris van Buren) CAD-UL’s code coverage and run-time check utilities provide a number of functions which can be used to improve the quality of the user’s code, including: Dead Code Elimination, Code Profiling and Optimization, and Quality Assurance checks. CAD-UL claims that these features can be implemented without additional hardware and without instrumenting the user’s code in any way, so that the original code remains unchanged. Testing is performed on-target within the embedded environment and all specific application software (including drivers) can be tested. Three main levels of coverage are provided: Source, Instruction and Complex Decision levels, in addition to run-time profiling. The coverage tools are available as an extension to the CAD-UL XDB monitor debugger, which is available for both real- and protected mode x86 systems. Additional memory must be allocated on the embedded target to accommodate the extra data, which the coverage analyser needs. Application code and data remain unchanged, and no "instrumentation" of the code is necessary. CAD-UL make extensive use of coloured highlighting in the coverage analyser to indicate degrees of coverage achieved e.g. covered/not covered/partially covered etc. The system is particularly effective at detecting error conditions relating to integer overflows, array bound violations, and enumeration problems.   Customer Presentation (Bill Davy) Bill presented the structure of his company, Synectix, and described his project based on the Phar Lap TNT Embedded ToolSuite. He thanked Hitex for the assistance he had received with writing a custom keyboard driver for the ETS kernel and also with configuring his ETS ethernet driver.   Summary, Feedback and Questions (Dale Fittes) Dale wound up the days’ presentations by thanking the presenters and delegates, and then opened up the floor to questions for the various presenters. A lively discussion ensued which was brought to a conclusion when Dale asked the delegates to fill out a feedback form giving their overall impressions of the seminar. Delegates were also invited to use the space provided on feedback forms to request any additional information they required, including a number of White Papers which were referred to during the seminar and which are listed below.   A summary of the information contained in the feedback forms is given below:  Speaker presentation    Seminar arrangements     White Papers: The following White Papers were referred to during the seminar: Choosing the Right BIOS for next Design – General Software Ref: EB4350-01 A Universal GUI for Embedded Systems – Phar Lap Software Using the CAD-UL XDB Debugger with the AMD Elan SC520 – CAD-UL Ltd.   Contact Details: The contact details for the companies who gave presentations at the Seminar are given below: Advanced Micro Devices (UK) Ltd. AMD House Frimley Business Park Frimley Camberley, GU16 5SL Tel: 01276 803100 Fax: 01276 803298 Email: sales@amd.com Web: www.amd.com CAD-UL Ltd. Attwood Building Franchise Street Perry Barr Birmingham, B42 2SU Tel: 0121 331 6873 Fax: 0121 331 6872 Email: sales@cadul.com Web: www.cadul.com     Phar Lap Software, Inc. (via Hitex)     General Software, Inc. (via Hitex)