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iSYSTEMTechBlog: Special Function Register Enhancements

Since winIDEA 9.11.77 the Special Function Register (SFR) Window has been enhanced to show:

• the address for the SFR
• the bit position and size for sub-SFRs (in beside picture you see O for offset and S for size)
• a radix prefix for the SFR value (0x for hexadecimal, 0b for binary values).

What are Special Function Registers (SFRs)?
SFRs are special on-chip CPUs registers that control various functions of a microcontroller, e.g. stack pointer, program counter.

To open the SFR window in winIDEA, you select "Special Function Registers..." command from winIDEA's View menu or click on the SFR window icon in the view toolbar.

The SFR window organizes CPU registers hierarchically into groups and sub groups and registers and sub registers. A group is a collection of registers that serve a module on the CPU e.g. serial port, a register corresponds to a CPU's Special Function Register.

iSYSTEMTechBlog: Profiler Configuration changes

Since winIDEA build 9.11.76 the configuration window of the profiler has completely changed.

• One major change is that there are no longer tabs for Code and Data Areas. Code and Data areas are now visible in the bottom half of the configuration window.
• If function profiling is enabled then all functions will be profiled if no functions are listed in the code areas list.
• There is now a leading check box for every function listed in the profiler data area. By clearing this check box profiler areas can be temporarily disabled. The new configuration will take effect in the next profiler session.
• Less frequently used options e.g. "Ignore functions which exit on entry" have been moved to "Advanced..." configuration.
• Tail-merge analysis is enabled by default now. It can be disabled/enabled in Profiler/Advanced options.
• If tail-merging is used, functions that are tail merge destinations (or stack killers) are now included implicitly but not shown if any of the explicitly specified functions use them.