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iSYSTEMTechBlog: Power Probe for Power Measurement

To help customers with power measurement iSYSTEM provides now a so called Power Probe!

As mentioned in last week's blog post the iC5000 I/O module allows now power measurement. But what do you do if your target's voltage and current exceed the input range of the I/O module?

Take iSYSTEM's Power Probe!

The Power Probe is a small board that is connected between the power supply and the target hardware. On the Power Probe you find two resistor blocks - one divider block for voltage and one shunt resistor block for current. If you need to scale down the voltage or current you just select the appropiate resistor by a jumper. 

And now you can connect the I/O module to measure the power consumption!

As mentioned in last week's blog post if you use divider resistors remember to specify in "Hardware/ Options/ IO" dialog a "Multiply" value and the Ohm value for the shunt resistor.

For more information see IOModule.pdf .

iSYSTEMTechBlog: Now Power Measurement with iC5000 IO Module

The iC5000 I/O module can now measure the power consumption of your target board! And in winIDEA's profiler you can view the uptake rate (current, power, voltage) !

 

Basically you will use on the I/O module port AIN0 for voltage measurement and port AIN1 for current measurement. Please select in winIDEA "Hardware/ Options/ IO" dialog the appropiate check box (in picture on the right).  
But before doing so please consider the input and output range of the I/O module. If your signal is higher than e.g. 5V, use a suitable resistor divider.

In winIDEA "Hardware/ Options/ IO" dialog you specify in "Analog IN" names for the incoming signals. If you use a divider resistor, ensure to set the correct "Multiply" value (in picture on the left).

For current measurement use a shunt resistor to protect the IO module. For correct measurements specify the Ohm value of the resistor (in picture on the right).

 

The actually measured values of current, power and voltage are shown in winIDEA's profiler over the period of time if you have configured the profiler to profile AUX signals too (profiler configuration dialog, section "Profile", check AUX box) . 

For more information and a detailed description of the setup see iC5000 I/O module.

testIDEA: Verification of Test Specification against Debug Information

testIDEA can now verify the correctness of test specifications against the debug information. The following items are verified: existence of functions and global variables, hiding of global variables by local variables, duplicate IDs.

Why is that a nice feature?
It can happen that typos in the test specification e.g. in the function or variable names, wrong number of function parameters or renamed function or variable names in the source code cause invalid test results or even a target crash.

To discover such problems before test execution, iSYSTEM added the new command "Tools / Verify symbols" to testIDEA.
Problems are shown in the Status View. By double clicking the problem line an explanation to the problem is shown in the right (light red) window and the Test Specification Editor view switches to the test specification related to the problem.

iSYSTEM's new Software Tool Qualification Video

Embedded News TV has published a new video on iSYSTEM's Tool Qualification suite.

iSYSTEM offers organizational measures and documentation as well as a tool setup to validate a dedicated functionality of iSYSTEM's tools according to safety standards like e.g. ISO26262.
 

Standards require qualification for software tools used in the development and test process before the actual development starts.

More information on iSYSTEM or on iSYSTEM's blog.

iSYSTEM's new Real Time Unit Test Video

Embedded News TV just published a new video on iSYSTEM's RealTime Unit Test tool.

iSYSTEM calls it realtime unit test because all tests are executed on the real hardware without any effects on the runtime behavior.

 

iSYSTEM has enhanced their debug and test tools to allow the generation and execution of test cases from inside the development environment. Realtime unit testing runs test scripts and verifies the application without any influence on its runtime behavior.
Realtime unit testing does not require any code instrumentation or any test driver. Without compiling/ linking/ download the test is executed on the real target hardware.

Now view the video.

More information on iSYSTEM and on iSYSTEM's blog.

iSYSTEMTechBlog: winIDEA's Profiler regards Stack Killers

Most operating systems have means to kill/terminate a task. Killing a task can become necessary when a task is stalled and occupies resources like memory and CPU. The way how task termination is implemented differs between operating systems, but it is an ungrateful way of ending and should only be used when there is no alternative because cleanup of resources is not done, e.g. stack, mutexes, synchronization objects are not released. 

Considering this behaviour from a profiler's perspective it's a disaster. A profiler watches function entry and exit points by tracking the stack. As long as the stack is valid, the task is regarded alive, but maybe in suspended state to be resumed in the future. If now the task is terminated without cleaning the stack, the profiler needs to know about it to avoid  incorrect measurements.

winIDEA's profiler can now be configured to be aware of these so called stack killers. When execution in the stack killer is detected, all active functions in the task within the current context (whose exit has not been detected jet) are considered preemptively terminated and all stack entries downto it's previous invocation are dismissed.

The stack killer configuration window is shown in Profiler's Configuration when pressing the "Advanced..." button. 

 

 

iSYSTEMTechBlog: winIDEA supports Keyboard Shortcuts for external Scripts

Since winIDEA 2011 build 55 (9.11.55) keyboard shortcuts can be configured for external scripts.

To configure shortcuts for scripts open the Tools/Options/Script dialog. In the section "Shortcut scripts" enter the name of the external script.

To define the keyboard shortcut, open Tools/Customize/Keyboard dialog.

Select in category Tools and on the right side the command the Run Shortcut script 1 to create the keyboard shortcut for the first script - in our example ProfilerConfig.py . Set the cursor in the dialog box Press new shortcut, press the key combination to use and select Assign.

When you now use in winIDEA above key combination the script e.g. ProfilerConfig.py will be executed.