Category: Software Debug and Trace

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 46: Using the DediProg SF100

Alan Sguigna

May 3, 2020
3:04 pm

I’ve been working from home for quite some time now, and don’t have access to all the equipment I normally would have at the office. And I’ve wanted to flash the MinnowBoard (and some other boards). So, rather than wait for the coronavirus shelter-in-place to lift, I went out and bought a DediProg SF100 of my own. Here’s my out-of-the-box experience.

Running Intel CScripts on Skylake servers

Alan Sguigna

April 12, 2020
3:58 pm

As everyone who works with server designs knows, Intel publishes a group of JTAG-based scripts called the Intel Customer Scripts (ICS, or CScripts for short). The CScripts are derived from internal applications that Intel uses for silicon validation, and they are enormously useful for board bring-up and debug. This week, I took a look at them, and ran some with SourcePoint.

Intel Processor Trace and AET

Alan Sguigna

April 5, 2020
5:16 pm

In my last few blogs, I’ve looked at the use of Intel Trace features for capturing valuable debug information. In particular, Architectural Event Trace (AET) and Management Engine (ME) message trace are very powerful capabilities. This week, we put these trace events in a meaningful code context by correlating them with Intel Processor Trace (IPT).

Intel Management Engine (ME) Event Trace

Alan Sguigna

March 29, 2020
4:49 pm

Last week, I used Architectural Event Trace (AET) to capture all events that invoked Model Specific Register (MSR) reads and writes. This week, I use the Trace Hub to trace Intel Management Engine (ME, also known as Converged Security and Management Engine (CSME)) events.

Advanced Capabilities of Architectural Event Trace

Alan Sguigna

March 22, 2020
5:23 pm

In the first and second episodes of this series, I did a basic introduction of how to set up AET and to trace I/O reads and writes. This week, I look at tracing all Model Specific Register (MSR) reads and writes.

Intel Architectural Event Trace (AET) in action

Alan Sguigna

March 15, 2020
9:31 pm

Last week, I wrote an introduction to Architectural Event Trace, an extremely powerful JTAG-based Trace facility within current Intel silicon. Using this technology in conjunction with SourcePoint gives the firmware developer unprecedented insight into program execution and events. This week, I look at some of the use cases.

Intel Architectural Event Trace (AET)

Alan Sguigna

March 8, 2020
2:57 pm

Yes, Intel Skylake-EP, also known as Skylake-SP, or Purley, or Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, is past the “line of demarcation”; which means some more of its powerful capabilities can be revealed in the public domain. I managed to get my hands on a server platform with this CPU, and looked at some of the advanced debug and trace capabilities within the silicon.

It’s JTAG’s 30th Anniversary!

Alan Sguigna

February 15, 2020
3:29 pm

Today, February 15th, 2020, marks the official 30th Anniversary of JTAG. What a wild ride it has been – from its humble beginnings for detecting short and open circuits, it has evolved to be, in some ways, the most powerful and feared technology on the planet. How did we get here?

Board Bring-Up of the i.MX6 Saber Lite

Alan Sguigna

January 26, 2020
3:47 pm

I received a bricked Saber Lite board as a gift. Before I could do anything useful with it, I had to get it to boot.

Benchmarking Yocto OpenBMC Builds Part 3: Ampere Computing on Packet

Alan Sguigna

January 12, 2020
5:40 pm

In Part 1, I compared the performance and cost of Intel Cascade Lake versus AMD Rome. In Part 2, I compared these against Amazon’s own Graviton1 CPU. In this article, I benchmarked Ampere Computing’s eMAG, available on Packet.com.

Category: Software Debug and Trace

The MinnowBoard Chronicles Episode 46: Using the DediProg SF100

Running Intel CScripts on Skylake servers

Intel Processor Trace and AET

Intel Management Engine (ME) Event Trace

Advanced Capabilities of Architectural Event Trace

Intel Architectural Event Trace (AET) in action

Intel Architectural Event Trace (AET)

It’s JTAG’s 30th Anniversary!

Board Bring-Up of the i.MX6 Saber Lite

Benchmarking Yocto OpenBMC Builds Part 3: Ampere Computing on Packet

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