Abstract

Embedded systems design is widely regarded as being a software development endeavor. Often, the hardware portion is overlooked. Hardware problems tend to consume more time than software problems in the debugging process. There are several reasons for this. First, most of the development time is spent writing the software as a better understanding of the software tends to lead to more efficient debugging. The second reason for the discrepancy in hardware/software debugging effort is that of tools. Read-only memory (ROM) simulation, high-end emulators, and software tools designed specifically for this purpose give the designer an awful lot of weapons in the battle against bugs. The execution rates can be speeded up or slowed down, breakpoints can be set, and one can manually step through the code in search of any software misbehavior. In contrast, the hardware debugging tools usually consist of a good oscilloscope, a digital meter, and the engineer's wits. Also, the process of chasing down bugs is not usually as well-defined for hardware as it is for code. Because of this, one needs to be careful and thorough with the hardware portion of designs.

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