Green Hills' TimeMachine for Coldfire Micros

“TimeMachine brings a level of visibility into system execution that has never before been available for the ColdFire architecture,” commented Renee Mitchell, operations manager of Freescale's Consumer and Industrial Microcontroller Operation. “TimeMachine enables developers of ColdFire architecture-based products to fix bugs fast, optimize their code with ease, and test with confidence. We are pleased with Green Hills Software’s continued commitment to technological innovation and to the ColdFire family.”

“Adding to our top performing compilers and debug probes for ColdFire, the release of SuperTrace Probe and TimeMachine extends Green Hills Software’s technology leadership for ColdFire device software optimization tools,” commented Andre Yew, director of engineering at Green Hills Software.

The TimeMachine debugger provides developers the ability to run and step an application back in time after a failure occurs, allowing easy identification of its root cause. This avoids the tedious and open-ended process of trial-and-error debugging required by previous generations of debuggers. The TimeMachine suite also includes a number of visualization tools, such as the PathAnalyzer, which bring to light complex system execution flow, making it easier to locate and mitigate performance bottlenecks.

The SuperTrace probe supports trace ports running at speeds beyond 300 MHz, collecting enormous amounts of trace data while the CPU executes at full speed. TimeMachine then analyzes the trace data to reconstruct the code execution steps that the processor followed. The SuperTrace probe provides both a means of controlling the processor’s trace logic and a channel for capturing trace data while the processor is running. In addition to the trace features, the SuperTrace probe also includes all the run-control features of the Green Hills probe.

ColdFire architecture delivers the aggressive price/performance required by the cost-sensitive embedded market. The variable-length RISC ColdFire architecture gives customers greater flexibility to lower memory and system costs. Small and inexpensive, the static ColdFire core also lowers system cost because it is completely synthesizable and easily integrated with memories, system modules, and peripherals.

SuperTrace Probe and TimeMachine for ColdFire are available today for the ColdFire MCF52xx, MCF53xx and MCF54xx families.