Using Tracealyzer with Renesas Devices

Percepio Tracealyzer is a stand-alone application for visualizing RTOS traces, supporting Renesas RA, RX and RZ devices. The trace data can be streamed in real time using the Segger J-Link interface found on many Renesas boards (using RTT), or kept in device RAM buffer that is saved on request (snapshots).

Get started with Percepio Tracealyzer by signing up for free evaluation here.

Guide for Zephyr

The target-side library for Tracealyzer (Percepio TraceRecorder) is available in the Zephyr repository and enabled via the kconfig configuration system. Please refer to the general Tracealyzer for Zephyr guide. All boards supported by Zephyr are also supported by TraceRecorder.

As a special treat for Renesas’ Zephyr customers, we offer a three-month subscription to Percepio Profile for Zephyr for just $99 – that’s 75% off the regular price! Click here to buy.

Guides for e2 studio and FreeRTOS

To get started with Tracealyzer in e2 studio projects using FreeRTOS, please refer to these guides:

	Renesas RA: Tracealyzer® for FreeRTOS debugging (at renesas.com)
	Renesas RX: How to Debug FreeRTOS Using Tracealyzer® for RX (at renesas.com)
	Renesas RZ/T2M or RZ/N2L: Using Tracealyzer with e² studio for snapshots on RZ/T2

Using Tracealyzer with VS Code

The steps are conceptually the same as in the e2 studio guides above. You may also refer to the general guide at https://percepio.com/gettingstarted for your RTOS.

To save snapshot traces from VS Code, you may run the following command in the Debug Console:

-exec dump binary value trace.bin *RecorderDataPtr"

For frequent use, consider setting up the Tracealyzer GDB integration, as described below.

Setting up the Tracealyzer GDB integration

This lets Tracealyzer connect to your GDB server and retrieve snapshots with a single click.
In Tracealyzer, click the “Take Snapshot” button to open that window.

Under “Snapshot Engine”, select “GDB”.
Now click on the “Settings” button in the “Take Snapshot” window to open the GDB settings.
- Path to GDB: Enter the path to your arm-none-eabi-gdb. This is found in your toolchain folder.
- Path to image: Specify the path to the .elf file generated by your build.
- Command to initialize: should be “target remote localhost:<port>”, where <port> is the TCP port number of your GDB server.
- The other settings can remain unchanged. Save the Tracealyzer settings.

You can now use the “Take Snapshot” button in Tracealyzer, assuming a debug session is active in the GDB server. Note that snapshots can only be read when the system is halted. If the system is running, it will be halted when reading the snapshot.

Using Tracealyzer with J-Link Streaming

With Tracealyzer you can stream traces continuously using a Segger J-Link debug probe. The J-Link interface is included on many Renesas development boards. To get started, please refer to the J-Link guide.

Using Tracealyzer with IAR Embedded Workbench

Percepio Tracealyzer can also be used with IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm. IAR’s I-Jet probes support high-speed streaming over ITM (SWO) and is easy to set up. You can find guides for both snapshots and streaming at https://percepio.com/iar. Note that you no longer need to use a named pipe in the SWO Configuration to provide data to Tracealyzer. The ITM data can be logged to a regular file and displayed live in Tracealyzer. For live visualization, select “File System” in the Tracealyzer “PSF Streaming Settings” and specify the ITM log file as source.

Contact

If you have questions on the technical integration or licensing, please feel free to contact the Percepio team.