ARM Community: 10 ways to give your customers the DS-5 experience - ARM Community

ARM Development Studio 5 (DS-5) is the software development tool that sets the standard for ARM with its optimising compiler, its extensible and easy to use debugger, and its unique analysis tool, Streamline. But DS-5 is not just for the ARM IP: if you're the designer of an ARM based SoC, an operating system that supports ARM or have productivity tools that support ARM, you can join the DS-5 ecosystem to make sure that your customers also get the DS-5 experience. Here are 10 ways you can do it.

1. Add DS-5 debug support to your ARM based SoC. The DS-5 debugger has a target database that is extensible by you, using a combination of XML to describe the contents of your SoC and python to script any necessary debug start-up configuration (such as enabling JTAG devices, configuring CoreSight devices, turning on debug, etc). If your device is based on one of the supported ARM processors, you can extend the target database by using our importer tool (cdbimporter) and by adding any necessary configuration directly into the database.

2. Give us access to your ARM based SoC and we can add support to DS-5. Not only can we add support to the debugger as described above, but we can also validate that Streamline operates correctly on your SoC and add the target to our validation suite.

3. If you have an ARM based SoC that contains other processors, such as DSPs, you can license our Template Development Kit (contact us for details), to allow you to add support for your DSP to the DSTREAM target connection unit. Then you can connect DS-5 debug to the ARM side and your own tools to the DSP side through a single connection. And if your tools are based on Eclipse, you can provide an even more integrated debug solution to your customers.

4. You can even add support to DS-5 for your own target connection hardware (ICE units), by supporting the Remote Device Debug Interface (RDDI). This interface is available for download. If you let us know you're doing this, we can even add your hardware to our internal validation suite!

5. Get your ARM based SoC supported "out of the box" by Streamline. If you have a Cortex-based device running Linux this is easy: simply add the gator driver and demon to your BSP; see the gator module in the Linaro DS-5 PPA for an example. Streamline already supports the performance monitor unit in the Cortex devices, but if your SoC has its own memory mapped performance counters, you can extend Streamline through adding support for these to the gator driver.

6. Write your own trace viewer. Many modern ARM devices have support for ITM or STM, which are for instrumenting the system software. Your software writes diagnostic information to the trace device and this information is streamed up to the debugger. We know that there is a huge variety of information that can be passed up this channel, so our Debug and Trace Services Layer (DTSL) lets you write your own plug-in to process and display the data in any form you like which are all integrated with DS-5. Some devices even have their own specialised hardware trace formats and again, you can use DTSL to get access to this.

7. Make DS-5 aware of your embedded operating system. We are creating interfaces to let operating system vendors write small Eclipse plugins which call into the debugger to provide operating system specific information. If you want to know more, get in touch here.

8. Integrate your productivity tools. DS-5 is Eclipse based, so if you have an Eclipse based software tool (for code analysis or verification, for example), it's relatively easy to get this integrated into the same Eclipse instance and ensure that your customers can use your product in the standard ARM development environment.

9. Once you've got the DS-5 experience, you will want to get an agreement with ARM to ship DS-5 evaluation tools with your product. The evaluation version is fully featured for 45 days. This makes it easier for your customers to get going with your product and DS-5.

10. Share your success! If you've integrated DS-5 into your product, you'll be invited to write an ARM Guest Partner blog about it and soon others will be reading about the new possibilities of integrated software development.

Welcome to the DS-5 ecosystem!

Hobson Bullman is Vice President - Tools, System Design Division, ARM. Hobson has worked at ARM since 1996, working within the development tools department. Development tools from ARM are an integral part of the solution offering, helping to enable successful ARM IP development and deployment. Hobson has represented ARM at various industry bodies and community organisations, including the Eclipse foundation, the Nexus 5001 Forum, and the Symbian Foundation.