In -Circuit Emulator

[admin]

Hello All,

             My doubt is regarding the in circuit emulator.Emulator means a device which behaves like a dummy to the target controller in its absence,during the development phase .Then what is this in circuit emulation options in microcontroller.(in S08 microcontroller).

Thanks and Regards

Syam.

[admin]

Hello peg,

              I never used an emulator.My idea about an emulator is that ,its a device which has IO pins

like the target controller ,as well as it behaves like target .This can be used as dummy for many microcontrollers by just changing the IO pin base.

                                    From your reply what I understood is that ,the above mentioned is a full emulator,and what we get in market  as ICE can dummy the core of that IC only. Its similar to debugging.In this condition there is need of target IC ,then why the name emulator .Debugger will do the job .Again the concept is confusing . 

[peg]

Hello,

Some (many?) would argue that what I have described is a Simulator.

This is the reason I mentioned being brave. Ask 100 people this question and get 100 different answers.

There probably is no correct answer. It depends on which device you are talking about and when in microcontroller history you are refering to.

Probably best to just stick to how each thing that is available for a certain device actually works. Trying to catagorise them all is impossible.

[bigmac]

Hello,

Perhaps an emulator is being simulated ... or vice versa.

Sorry!

Regards,

Mac

[admin]

What is meant by in circuit emulation ? What is the concept?Emulator means a dummy device to target .Then what is meant by inbuilt emulation in an IC?

[peg]

Hello,

I'm going to be brave and attempt to answer this.

There is generally two levels of emulation.

Full emulation is where the entire system is emulated by the host (PC?) The code runs in an emulated environment and when calls are made to what would normally be off chip i/o etc you have to type in simulated values or some such.

In circuit emulation is where only the core is emulated on the host and where externally sourced data is required it is fetched over the debug interface through the real i/o subsystems in the real device from the real externally connected signals.

Another level is a debugger where the device runs in-circuit almost normally with the host accessing internal memory and registers etc while it is running.

I imagine that what the marketing speak really means is that the device has features to facilitate in-circuit emulation. If it is really in-built then what is being "emulated"

Getting an exact answer to this is probably like asking what "whiter than white" means in relation to washing powder.

[MrBean]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-circuit_emulator

[Witztronics]

You can download a Freescale white paper from our web site that explains the benifits of the built in emulation.

http://witztronics.com/documents/Freescale%20HCS08%20BDM%20white%20paper.zip