That is partly because the evolution of those tools has not kept up with the growth in embedded hardware and software. It\u2019s a problem.<\/p>\n
A scenario is quickly developing where the gap could become very large between what the embedded \u2018system\u2019 (hardware + software) is capable of delivering and what the embedded developer can actually enable.<\/p>\n
The embedded tools challenge<\/h2>\n
The embedded software design methodology, especially the code-compile-debug flow, hasn\u2019t changed much. The arrival of multicore architectures has given rise to new defects (race conditions, deadlocks, stalls, etc.) which are not a part of the traditional embedded design lexicon. Added to that, there are the expectations of \u2018high-performance\u2019 from multicore that imply a need for quality performance analysis tools.<\/p>\n
One small bit of good news is that there are free technologies (Oprofile, free, top\/ps) and open source software (LTT, gprof, sar) that try to fill this gap. But they are at best \u2018utilities\u2019 and are typically run ad-hoc. As they have no relationship to each other, it is left to the user to determine the best approach to using them in combination.<\/p>\n
OK, so obviously I\u2019m with Mentor. And at this point, I have to say what we are doing to make life easier and improve development.<\/p>\n
Sourcery Analyzer updated for multicore<\/h2>\n
Most recently, Mentor Embedded announced an update at last week\u2019s ARM TechCon to Sourcery Analyzer<\/a>, a powerful embedded Linux debug and performance analysis tool.<\/p>\n Sourcery Analyzer has been designed for embedded developers working on high-performance multicore Linux systems. It is an amalgam of open source software and bleeding-edge proprietary technology (which, incidentally, which has its roots in the EDA side of Mentor).<\/p>\n Figure 1<\/span> Sourcery Analyzer leverages the popular open source LTTng 2.0<\/a> (Linux Trace Toolkit next generation) project as its source mechanism to collect performance- and debug-related Linux kernel and user-space trace data.<\/p>\n To facilitate quick out-of-box setup and analysis, it then includes a library of \u2018Analysis Agents<\/a>\u2019. This is a set of pre-processed views of popular analysis routines. Performance analysis of user-space applications is also possible by creating custom analysis agents. In addition, Trace Calculator and Measurement Tool utilities provide unprecedented data manipulation flexibility.<\/p>\n Of course that\u2019s my pitch. You will – and I hope you do – want to know more. So I wanted to take this opportunity to point you in the direction of further resources that illustrate the productivity gains we are already delivering through Sourcery Analyzer.<\/p>\n![\"Sourcery](\"https:\/\/www.techdesignforums.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/tdf-ment-embblog-nov12-med.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n
\nSourcery Analyzer has been updated for multicore Linux developers (Source: Mentor Graphics)<\/p>\n<\/div>\nGoing deeper<\/h2>\n