High-end development tool improves performance and provides significant cost savings for 8- and 32-bit microcontrollers
(Product News, 16 Apr 2008 )
Atmel Corporation, announced today its AVR ONE! high-end debugger for AVR and AVR32 microcontrollers. Atmel is committed to offer quality development tools at an affordable price. One unique high-end on-chip debugging platform for all AVR and AVR32 devices: this is AVR ONE! available at US$599 only while similar tools usually cost thousands of dollars. The new debug tool will help customers to speed up their design and get to the market faster.
The AVR32 microcontrollers and processors are the first devices to be supported by AVR ONE! and will be followed by most of the tinyAVR®, megaAVR® and XMEGA™ devices during 2008. AVR ONE! customers will get free of charge upgrades as Atmel extends support to all AVR devices.
The AVR ONE! speeds up programming and supports non-intrusive observation and logging of how the embedded system performs. This allows the software engineer a clear view of real time system behavior, without affecting or modifying the real time characteristics of the microcontroller.
High speed program and debug – The new AVR ONE! is a high-end JTAG and Nexus on-chip debugger that is designed to deliver accurate monitoring of system behavior in embedded systems built around AVR and AVR32 microcontrollers and application processors. Faster communication between the PC and the target microcontroller speeds up the flow of debug data, and the user will notice the improved responsiveness to user input. Programming microcontrollers with large on-chip flash memories will be up to 3 times faster than existing debuggers.
Real time debugging – The AVR ONE! offers advanced real-time debugging features. In addition to basic programming and on-chip debugging via the traditional 4-pin JTAG port, the AVR ONE! supports debugging via the Nexus port, an 8-bit parallel port found on all AVR32 devices. Inside the AVR32 microcontroller, the Nexus port is connected by a separate data bus to all the on-chip peripherals and memories. The separate bus allows the debugger to monitor and modify system behavior in every part of the microcontroller without interrupting or affecting the timing of the program running in the microcontroller. The AVR ONE! can be connected live to a running application without interference.
Real-time trace – The AVR32 Nexus debug interface is connected to the AVR32 CPU’s trace port. This is a port which outputs vital statistics about CPU behavior and the software running. This real-time trace data is captured by the AVR ONE! debugger and forwarded to the PC, where the user can reconstruct the steps taken by the CPU leading up to an erroneous state from a 2 GB data buffer. This marks a breakthrough in on-chip debugging, allowing for the first time an on-chip trace port in a non-bondout version of all AVR32 microcontrollers.
A complete line-up of debuggers – The AVR ONE! expands Atmel’s line-up of on-chip debug adapters, which already consists of the very popular JTAGICE mkII and the low cost AVR Dragon introduced last year. Customers can now choose the tool that best fits their needs and budgets.
