Custom In-Circuit Test Applications

PEmicro’s UNIT Interface Library Routines allow the user to create a Windows application which can fully control the execution of an embedded processor via one of PEmicro’s hardware interfaces.

The PC-based application can peek and poke memory, peripherals, and other resources of the embedded processor through the debug port. Applications can use this capability to perform tests of the target hardware, calculate target calibration data, or simply be a way to develop a totally custom application which controls the target via debug mode. The advantage of using debug mode is that the processor doesn’t need to be running application code or even to be programmed for the PC application to fully exercise the processor’s capabilities.

As a code example, a C code snippet for testing the address lines of an external RAM with the UNIT libraries can be seen here :

More examples can be seen in this expert’s corner.

A sample of the API for the UNIT Interface Library Routines can be downloaded from the documents tab of any of the Interface Library Routine products. UNIT Interface Library Routines are available for many embedded architectures.

In addition to the UNIT interface Library Routines, a hardware interface is needed to make the connection between the PC and the target processor. The hardware interfaces offered by PEmicro can be seen here.

Is your architecture not supported? Suggest one here