In-circuit debugger and programmer speeds design iterations

23rd August 2018

Mick Elliott

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Datasheet

The MPLAB Snap in-circuit debugger and programmer from Microchip Technology is available at Mouser Electronics. It provides affordable, fast, and easy debugging and programming of most PIC, AVR and SAM flash microcontrollers and dsPIC digital signal controllers (DSCs), using the powerful graphical user interface of MPLAB X integrated development environment (IDE).

The board features a 32-bit 300 MHz SAM E70 Arm Cortex-M7 based microcontroller for quicker debug iterations. The debugger system executes code, like an actual device, because it uses the target device’s built-in emulation circuitry, instead of a special debugger chip.

All available features of the device are accessible interactively and can be set and modified by the MPLAB X IDE interface.

Additionally, the board matches the silicon clocking speed of the target device, allowing engineers to run programs at the device’s maximum speed.

The board connects to a computer via high-speed USB 2.0 interface and can be connected to the target device through an 8-pin single in-line (SIL) header. The connector uses two device input/output (I/O) pins and the reset line to implement in-circuit debugging and In-Circuit Serial Programming (ICSP) capability.

Along with its support for a wide target voltage range of 1.20V to 5.5V, the MPLAB Snap supports advanced interfaces such as 4-wire JTAG and Serial Wire Debug with streaming data gateway. It is also backward compatible for demo boards, headers and target systems using 2-wire JTAG and ICSP.