GOEPEL electronic supports Energy Micro’s Wonder Gecko MCU with new VarioTAP Emulation Test & Debug libraries

This extends the capability of GOEPEL electronic’s revolutionary technology for in-circuit emulation, test and debug, to the full range of Energy Micro’s EFM32 series MCUs.



The VarioTAP technology ensures that applications get the highest test coverage and allows processor emulation to be performed at system level. This enables the functional testing of all board components and validation of the code that will subsequently be loaded into the processor’s embedded flash program memory. Test patterns, based on processor-specific library models, are generated from the MCU code and are used to control the target device via its boundary scan or debug interface. In the case of Energy Micro’s ARM Cortex-M3 and Cortex-M4 based MCUs, VarioTAP utilises the ARM Serial Wire Debug (SWD) interface. Signals are applied to the system under test via GOEPEL electronic’s SCANFLEX TAP transceiver hardware.



Reflecting on GOEPEL electronic’s impressive demonstration at Embedded World earlier this year, where it showed 16 Energy Micro EFM32 Giant Gecko starter kits being programmed and tested in parallel, GOEPEL electronic’s marketing manager, Bettina Richter, commented, “With the introduction of more powerful processors the need for high level board and system emulation and testing becomes ever more important. We’ve shown how VarioTAP can run multiple applications on the Giant Gecko microcontrollers and now we’ve added support for the EFM32 Wonder Gecko MCU to our IP model library.”



Oyvind Janbu, chief technology officer at Energy Micro added, “Using a sophisticated tool like VarioTAP enables our customers to verify their hardware design directly in the target application, with all the associated board level components and external interfaces. It greatly helps speed up the software development and right-first-time designs.”