Video Interview and Demo
Check out this video interview and demo given by Percepio CEO and founder Dr. Johan Kraft, interviewed by Brandon Lewis from Embedded Computing Design.
On printf debugging
Printf calls are SLOW. Writing 25 bytes over a 115200 baud serial line takes a whopping 2 milliseconds, not counting any string formatting. This may change the system behavior and hide the problem you are chasing. This also means that printf calls can't be used in any time critical code, such as interrupt handlers. Additional [...]
Troubleshooting J-Link RTT streaming
The easiest way to stream Tracealyzer traces from an RTOS is often via a SEGGER J-Link debug probe, using the RTT feature. This relies on a RAM buffer that is read by the J-Link probe while the target system is executing. This is usually fast and reliable, but in case you encounter issues, please check [...]
We are hiring – Field Application/Support Engineer
Percepio is looking for a customer-facing engineer with solid skills in embedded software development. The main responsibility of this position is technical support, mainly pre-sales support.
New Plugins for Eclipse IDEs and Atmel Studio 7
Good news! We have now updated both the Eclipse plugin and the Atmel Studio 7 plugin for Tracealyzer 4, making it even easier to analyze and debug RTOS-based software using Tracealyzer. The Eclipse plugin works with most Eclipse-based IDEs for Arm-based MCUs, such as Atollic TrueStudio, MCUXpresso, Simplicity Studio, etc. Both plugins support snapshot tracing of FreeRTOS, [...]
Analyzing communication and data flow in an unknown software stack
One of the biggest problems in embedded development today is understanding what a software stack or demo that you didn’t write is doing. In this post, we’ll examine how we can find this out using the Tracealyzer communication flow diagram.
Tracealyzer – more than a debugging tool
In our new blog series Hands On, which launches today, we will examine many ways that developers can Tracealyzer besides debugging.
Version 4.1.5 adds IAR streaming support
We are happy to announce an update of Tracealyzer, v4.1.5, bringing trace streaming support for IAR Embedded Workbench, allowing IAR users to fully benefit from the powerful capabilities of Tracealyzer 4 using IAR I-Jet probes. This leverages the ITM module found on most Arm Cortex-M3, M4 and M7 MCUs. With a fast debug [...]
Improved Tracealyzer Support for IAR Embedded Workbench and Renesas Synergy MCUs
Västerås, Sweden, 5th July 2018 * * * Percepio, the leader in software trace visualization for embedded systems and IoT, today announced improved Tracealyzer streaming support for Renesas Synergy MCUs and IAR Embedded Workbench.
Tracealyzer streaming over ARM ITM using ULINKpro/ULINKplus
Good news! As of version 4.1 (just released) Tracealyzer supports ITM tracing for ARM Cortex-M3, M4 and M7 MCUs. This is initially available for FreeRTOS and Micrium µC/OS-III, but support is planned for SafeRTOS and ThreadX soon. With a fast debug probe like Keil ULINKpro or ULINKplus, ITM allows for high data rates and low [...]
Industry leaders praise Tracealyzer 4 at Embedded World
Tracealyer 4 took Embedded World by storm. Interest was intense and people were really impressed. During the show, we asked seven industry leaders if we could film their reaction to Tracealyzer 4. All agreed, and this is the result … Tracealyzer 4 brings five major improvements: Brand new user interface – fresh, [...]
Improved Tracealyzer support for Microchip MPLAB X IDE
We are happy to announce improved Tracealyzer support for Microchip MPLAB X IDE, allowing for tracing of additional RTOSes. The updated MPLAB plugin now supports Micrium µC/OS-III and SafeRTOS, in addition to the previous FreeRTOS support. The plugin has also been updated and verified for the latest version of MPLAB X IDE (v4.0.5). The plugin saves [...]
Analyzing huge traces with Tracealyzer 4
Do you struggle with bugs that are difficult to replicate and isolate? Most embedded software developers encounter such problems now and then. With increasingly complex multi-threaded RTOS-based systems, such issues are likely to become more and more common in the future. They can be very difficult and time consuming to solve, and sometimes developers resort [...]
IoT Expert reviews Tracealyzer
Alan Hawse, evangelist and 26-year veteran at Cypress Semiconductor, has published an informative blog post detailing how you can integrate Percepio Tracealyzer into Cypress’ developer toolset PSoC Creator. “As you have probably noticed, I have spent a significant amount of time in the last few months doing FreeRTOS projects,” he writes, and “One thing that [...]
Webinar: RTOS Fundamentals using FreeRTOS and the STM32 – 21 June 2017
Embedded system complexity has reached the point where many systems require a real-time operating system. In this webinar, attendees will become familiar with the design methodologies necessary to properly schedule tasks in addition to understanding when and where to use mutexes, semaphores and message queues. Important concepts such as preventing priority inversions, deadlock and thread [...]
Trace Debugging for Renesas Synergy and ThreadX
By Niclas Lindblom, Senior FAE at Percepio AB. Percepio has recently introduced Tracealyzer for ThreadX, which is good news for developers using Renesas Synergy. As you might know, the Renesas Synergy Software Package (SSP) includes the ThreadX RTOS and middleware from Express Logic, supporting Synergy S1, S3, S5 and S7 processors. Tracealyzer is a runtime [...]
Success at ZF in adopting automotive software tracing
Learn how ZF was able to improve their embedded software development by adopting Percepio Tracealyzer, the leading solution for RTOS-level trace analysis. ZF is a global leader in automotive driveline and chassis technology, active and passive safety technology, and a long-time customer of IntervalZero – providing technology that turns the Windows operating system into a real-time operating [...]
Tracealyzer for ThreadX now available
We are delighted to announce the immediate availability of Tracealyzer for ThreadX, now available for download and evaluation. Tracealyzer for ThreadX supports all ports of ThreadX, with explicit support for Renesas Synergy. PRESS RELEASE Västerås, Sweden, 26th April 2017 - Percepio AB, the leading specialist in software tracing tools for real-time operating systems today announced [...]
Tracealyzer for VxWorks v3.1.2
We are pleased to announce the release of Tracealyzer for VxWorks version 3.1.2, now available for download. Changes include several bug fixes and plenty of useful improvements, such as: User Event Log This view shows a text log of custom "User Events" that have been added in the embedded application code (much like "printf" call). [...]
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.1.2
We are pleased to announce the availability Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.1.2, now available for download. Users of v3.1.x are recommended to upgrade to this version, especially if using the User Event features. Changes, v3.1.1 -> v3.1.2 - Several improvements of the User Manual, e.g., about snapshot trace via IAR Embedded Workbench. - Fixed a potential [...]
ARM’s new RTOS gets visualization from Percepio
PRESS RELEASE Västerås, Sweden, 14th March 2017 *** Percepio AB, the leading specialist in software tracing tools for real-time operating systems, has been working closely with ARM to develop Tracealyzer for ARM® Keil® RTX5, the new RTOS in Keil MDK and ARM mbed™ OS. Tracealyzer for RTX5 is based on Percepio’s latest Tracealyzer v3.1 platform [...]
Tracealyzer for ThreadX and Renesas Synergy
Leading software tracing tool soon available for the ThreadX RTOS and Renesas Synergy PRESS RELEASE Västerås, Sweden, 14th March 2017 - Percepio AB, the leading specialist in software tracing tools for real-time operating systems has been working closely with Express Logic to develop Tracealyzer for ThreadX. ThreadX from Express Logic is a leading embedded RTOS [...]
Industry leaders form the Embedded Tools Alliance
PRESS RELEASE London, UK: Wed 8th March 2017 Today a number of industry leading companies in the embedded tools industry announce a new milestone in embedded system development - the Embedded Tools Alliance (ETA). The embedded developers' toolbox is complex and involves many components: IDE (Integrated Development Environment), compilers, debuggers, trace tools, test tools, debug [...]
Tracealyzer v3.1.1 – better Eclipse support!
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS version 3.1.1 is now available on the download page. This is a maintenance release, following up the big v3.1.0 release in december. The main functional improvement is a new Eclipse plugin, making it more convenient to use Tracealyzer with Eclipse-based IDEs like SOMNIUM DRT, Simplicity Studio, and others. The plugin allows for reading trace snapshots via any debug [...]
Common RTOS-related Bugs – How Avoid and Detect
Last month at Embedded Conference Scandinavia, Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft made a very well received presentation called "Common RTOS-related bugs – How to Avoid and Detect". The presentation covered RTOS basics, the motivations and challenges of using an RTOS, then dived into specific RTOS-related problems - their symptoms, how to avoid them and means [...]
Upgrading the Trace Recorder to v3.1
The improved trace recorder library is the biggest change in Tracealyzer v3.1, at least for FreeRTOS, Micrium and SafeRTOS. We have merged snapshot and streaming support into a single recorder module that support both modes, and improved the API and documentation to make it easier to use. If you are using an older version of the [...]
ECS 2016: Common RTOS-related Bugs – How Avoid and Detect
Join us as Embedded Conference Scandinavia (ECS), in Kista (Stockholm, Sweden), November 22-23. Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft will give a presentation titled "Common RTOS-related Bugs - How Avoid and Detect". The presentation is on the 23rd, at 09:15 - 10:00 (track 1/M1). See you there! Abstract: Real-time [...]
The RTOS trend and the challenges of using an RTOS
Using an RTOS, or perhaps considering an RTOS for your next project? In that case, we recommend reading our article RTOS Trends and Challenges by Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft, featured on Embedded.com. The article discusses the strong RTOS trend in the embedded industry, including the motivations and fundamental challenges of using an RTOS, pitfalls that even caused NASA's JPL some serious problems during the [...]
RTOS Tracing, your way
When debugging an RTOS-based system, tracing can often give a better understanding of the real-time behavior of your system. Percepio Tracealyzer supports two main types of RTOS tracing, snapshot and streaming, both offering the same powerful visualization although streaming allows for collecting longer traces. The Percepio trace recorder offers several options to allow developers to adjust the tracing [...]
RTOS 101: Semaphores and Queues
The use of a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) is increasingly common in embedded software designs. An RTOS makes it easy to divide your code into smaller blocks, tasks, which execute seemingly in parallel and independent of each other, as described in the first article in the RTOS 101 series. Having fully independent tasks is [...]
Tracealyzer for Micrium µC/OS-III
We are proud to announce the availability of Tracealyzer for µC/OS-III, targeting embedded software developers using Micrium's popular RTOS. In collaboration with Micrium we have also integrated support for Tracealyzer in the latest version of µC/OS-III (v3.0.6) which makes it very easy to get started. Tracealyzer for µC/OS-III visualizes the real-time behavior of the firmware running Micrium µC/OS-III and [...]
Customer Case: Mysterious Watchdog Reset
We collect examples of how Tracealyzer has been of used by our customers and have recreated these cases to illustrate the benefits of trace visualization for embedded software developers. In this case, a customer had an issue with a randomly occurring reset. By placing a break point in the reset exception handler, they figured out that it was [...]
Using ST-Link for RTOS trace streaming
Have you ever tried recording what happens in an RTOS-based firmware to find some bug or tune the performance? You will quickly find that there is a lot of interesting stuff going on, like in the below view from Tracealyzer showing a 50 millisecond section of a much longer trace. There are plenty of interrupts and [...]
Percepio Delivers Tracealyzer for IntervalZero RTX64
Västerås, Sweden, 9th June 2016 - Percepio AB, the Swedish developer of RTOS visualization tools, today announced the delivery of Tracealyzer for RTX64 to IntervalZero, makers of RTX64, the leading Windows-based real-time operating system. Percepio has been working in conjunction with IntervalZero since January 2016 to port and integrate Tracealyzer into the RTX64 SDK. Tracealyzer for [...]
ARM ITM: why you need a fast debug probe!
When developing embedded software, a good understanding of the real-time behavior is vital. At Percepio we develop the Tracealyzer tools for RTOS trace visualization, but this post is about a related technology from ARM that we believe is of general interest to any developer using ARM-based MCUs. Having some form of diagnostic logging/tracing is necessary in most [...]
New website
We have just published our updated website, I hope you like the new design! There are a few issues remaining, especially the product pages don't look great at the moment. This will be fixed within the next days.
Starting with FreeRTOS and Tracealyzer on Renesas RZ/A1
Today I received an interesting new board to play with, a Computex board with a powerful Renesas RZ/A1 processor shown below. This has an ARM Cortex-A9 core at 400 MHz and 3 MB on-chip RAM. And if that is not enough, there is another 32 MB RAM on the board. Quite a lot of power [...]
Tracing Exceptions on ARM Cortex-M MCUs
Software tracing comes in two main flavors, software-defined trace and hardware-defined trace. Hardware-defined trace means that the processor outputs a trace of low-level software events, such as control-flow branches and exceptions/interrupts. The resulting trace is very detailed and can therefore be overwhelming - you don't see the forest for all the trees! Software-defined trace means [...]
Starting with FreeRTOS and Tracealyzer using STM32CubeMX
Welcome to the first post on getting started with using a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) and Percepio Tracealyzer. In earlier posts we have talked a lot about how you can use Tracealyzer to find unwanted behavior in your RTOS-based system, but here and in a few later articles we will discuss how to actually do [...]
How debug an Electric Race Car
If you have kids and like to build stuff, you might have built a soapbox car at some point. At least I did last summer. For me, an obvious next step was to consider adding an electric motor. I never found the time, but would have loved a project like that. I therefore got quite [...]
Great success at Embedded World
In the end of February we exhibited at Embedded World, which is the largest Embedded Systems trade show in the world with about 1000 exhibitors and 25,000 visitors. The show was very successful for Percepio! We had a lot of interested visitors and we were approached by several major MCU vendors interested in collaboration. It [...]
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.0.6
An updated version is now available of Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS. This solves a minor issue with task names containing the substring "idle", which previously were mistakenly assumed to be the idle task (which is treated differently).
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.0.5
We have now released Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS version 3.0.5, with some improvements in the documentation and two bug fixes in the snapshot recorder.
RTOS 101: Performance analysis with Tracealyzer
When developing firmware using a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS), how do you measure the software performance? One important aspect of performance analysis is response time, the time from point A to point B in the code, e.g., from when a task is activated until it is completed. This can be measured in many ways, e.g., [...]
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.0.4
We are proud to announce the availability of an updated Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS, version 3.0.4. Updated versions for other platforms will follow shortly. Changes include: Support for Atmel Studio 7 The Tracealyzer extension for Atmel Studio ("FreeRTOS+Trace" found in Atmel Gallery) now supports trace upload via Atmel Studio 7. For technical reasons we had to [...]
Percepio and FreeRTOS creator Richard Barry at Embedded World
Next week is Embedded World in Nürnberg, Germany, the largest embedded industry trade show in the world. This year Percepio is participating in a big way. We will have two stands demonstrating our Tracealyzer products and some very cool presentations together with Mr. Richard Barry, creator and maintainer of FreeRTOS. Percepio home base will [...]
Percepio raises expansion capital
PRESS RELEASE Percepio AB, the Swedish developer of visualization tools for embedded software developers, has secured a new investment round to accelerate expansion, and focus on development and marketing of its Tracealyzer software. The main investors are Stockholms Affärsänglar and Professionell Ägarstyrning AB, the latter is a new investor in Percepio and now joins the [...]
Job opening – C# developer / Data Visualization
Percepio develops visualization software, Tracealyzer, which is used by embedded systems developers worldwide in development, validation and troubleshooting of all sorts of advanced software-controlled products, from vacuum cleaners to industrial robots and electric cars. We are now hiring a skilled C# developer. Percepio is an innovative all-star team that puts great value in your [...]
How much processor time is used by the recorder?
Software-based tracing always means some processing overhead, where the exact amount is f x e, where f is the average event frequency and e is the average execution time for storing an event. This is very dependent on your application and processor. The more RTOS calls, the larger overhead. The faster processor, the less overhead. Let's put in some [...]
RTOS 101: Tasks, Priorities and Analysis
The use of Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) is increasingly common in embedded software designs, as an RTOS makes it easy to divide your code into smaller blocks, tasks, which execute seemingly in parallel and independent of each other. An RTOS provides multi-tasking, in a reliable and maintainable manner, which makes it easier to design applications [...]
Improved J-Link trace streaming
Our latest version of Tracealyzer supports continuous streaming trace via SEGGER J-Link / J-Trace debuggers, leveraging the Real-Time Transfer feature (RTT) that allows for transferring data between host and target at high speeds in a non-intrusive manner. Our RTOS monitoring just needs to write the data into a specific RAM buffer, and the J-Link debugger then [...]
Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS v3.0.2
Today we released a minor improvement of Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS. Changes: - Improved User Manual - updated chapter about the trace recorder library. - Bug fix in the streaming recorder, related to tracing of nested ISRs.
The Value of Runtime Visualization
ABB Robotics is a leading developer of industrial robots and robot control systems. They have been using Tracealyzer systematically since 2005. Their highly sophisticated control system has a software trace recorder active at all times, also during customer operation. We let the Tracealyzer users at ABB Robotics answer a survey regarding the value of [...]
Embedded Conference Scandinavia
Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft will present "Runtime visualization on ARM Cortex-M devices" at Embedded Conference Scandinavia (ECS 2015). The presentation is on November 4 at 11:30, in the "Debug" session. Abstract With increasing software complexity, runtime visualization becomes increasingly important for development productivity and product quality. Visualization allows embedded software developers to quickly gain [...]
Tracealyzer v3.0
PRESS RELEASE Percepio AB, the Swedish developer of RTOS visualization tools, today announced the availability of Tracealyzer v3.0, initially supporting FreeRTOS and SEGGER embOS. The new generation Tracealyzer offers continuous trace streaming, allowing for essentially unlimited traces of task scheduling, interrupts, and application logging. Trace streaming is supported via SEGGER J-Link debug probes, which offers [...]
FreeRTOS+Trace for PIC32 MCUs
We are proud to announce a new version of FreeRTOS+Trace targeting Microchip PIC32 and Microchip MPLAB® X IDE. FreeRTOS+Trace is the Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS. FreeRTOS+Trace visualizes run-time behavior of your embedded software through 20+ interactive views that complement the debugger perspective with the “big picture”. You may have used some trace tool before, but this [...]
FreeRTOS+Trace now with Task Notifications
FreeRTOS+Trace v2.7.7 is now available on the Downloads page. The main improvement is support for tracing and viewing Task Notifications. This is a lightweight mechanism for task communication and synchronization, introduced in FreeRTOS v8.2.0. Read more at FreeRTOS.org. Task Notifications tracing requires FreeRTOS v8.2.2 or newer. Other improvements include: - Updated plugin for Microchip MPLAB [...]
New distributor – Italsoft
We are happy to introduce a new member of our expanding reseller network, Italsoft, now representing Percepio in Italy. So if you are interested in the Percepio Tracealyzer tools and live in Italy, please contact our new partner! For distributors in other countries, please check Partners page.
Customer Case: Increased response time?
This Tracealyzer user developed a networked system, containing a TCP/IP stack, a flash file system, and an RTOS running on an ARM Cortex-M4 microcontroller. The system contained several RTOS tasks, including a server-style task that responds to network requests, and a log file spooler task (unrelated to Tracealyzer). The response time on network requests had [...]
Three new distributors
We are seeing increased interest for Percepio Tracealyzer all over the world and strive to provide local distributors on all markets. We are therefore happy to present the three new distributors in our expanding reseller network: Dioiz covering Korea. Indes covering Benelux. Macro Dynamics covering Australia and New Zealand. If you are interested in [...]
Tracealyzer for Linux Tutorial
Check out our new Tracealyzer for Linux Tutorial, explaining how runtime visualization can improve software development efficiency and software quality, showing how Tracealyzer for Linux can visualize runtime Linux systems, and especially how to get started with Tracealyzer and LTTng. Tracealyzer for Linux provides unprecedented runtime visualization for developers of multi-threaded Linux applications and [...]
embOS-Trace video with J-Link streaming
Check out our new embOS-Trace video, demonstrating the first Tracealyzer product to offer continuous trace streaming on SEGGER J-Link debug probes. This works on any SEGGER J-Link debug probe and any ARM Cortex-M device. The new Tracealyzer support for J-Link streaming has initially been released for SEGGER embOS. Learn more on the embOS-Trace product page. [...]
embOS-Trace v2.8.3
We have released embOS-Trace v2.8.3, just a small bug fix related to User Event formatting. The new version is available on the Downloads page.
Updated Tracealyzers – v2.7.5 and v2.8.2
Today we released updated versions of all Percepio Tracealyzer tools, version 2.8.2 for embOS-Trace and version 2.7.5 of other Tracealyzer tools. Changes v2.7.4 -> v2.7.5 * Corrected Mono/Linux support. * Corrected "Export Actor Data" - now respects time-formatting. * Simplified signup for evaluation, opens "enter license key" after registration. Note: The recorder library has not [...]
Sightsys new distributor in Israel
Percepio has today signed with Sightsys LTD as sole distributor in Israel. Percepio founder and CEO, Dr. Johan Kraft comments: "We offer the Tracealyzer products for several leading real-time operating systems and Sightsys is a very suitable partner with matching focus. We are happy to welcome Sightsys as a Percepio partner and reseller."
embOS-Trace v2.8.1 available
An updated version of embOS-Trace is now available in the downloads section. - Latest J-Link drivers, with bug fixes regarding SEGGER RTT (on some older J-Link models, onlu buffer 0 could be used). - Missing defines embOS "rtos.h" added in "trcRecorder.c" as hotfix, until embOS is updated with the missing defines.
embOS-Trace v2.8.0 available
We are proud to announce the availablity of embOS-Trace, the Tracealyzer for SEGGER embOS. Download and try it today! There is a demo trace included that allows for trying the visualizations without any setup required. This is the first Tracealyzer to feature trace streaming, allowing for essentially unlimited durations of RTOS-level tracing. This uses SEGGER [...]
FreeRTOS+Trace for Renesas V850ES
We now offer a port of FreeRTOS+Trace for Renesas V850, including a demo project for IAR Embedded Workbench. See the "Contributed Ports" section: https://percepio.com/tz/downloads/?dir=L0NvbnRyaWJ1dGVkIFBvcnRz.
Customer Case: Mysterious Watchdog Reset
We collect examples of how Tracealyzer has been of useful to our customers and have recreated similar issues to illustrate the benefits of our Tracealyzer tools for embedded software developers. In this case, a customer had an issue with a randomly occurring reset. By placing a breakpoint in the reset exception handler, they figured out [...]
Percepio in “Dagens Industri”
Percepio recently appeared in the Swedish business newspaper "Dagens Industri". Below is a scan for those who understand Swedish. The text describes (briefly) the challenges of embedded software development, how developers can benefit from run-time visualization tools, how the company got started, etc. (Click to enlarge.)
Percepio AB Joins ARM Connected Community
PRESS RELEASE Västerås, Sweden 2 April 2015. Percepio AB today announced it is a new member in the ARM® Connected Community, the industry’s largest ecosystem for ARM-based technology and services. As part of the ARM Connected Community, Percepio will gain access to a full range of resources to help it market and deploy innovative solutions [...]
Streaming trace on SEGGER J-Link
A major limitation with our previous Tracealyzer tools has been the limited trace length and/or large RAM requirements. The recorder could only store as much trace as its RAM buffer allowed. This could at most give a few seconds of trace on most microcontrollers. Can be very valuable, but also rather restricted in many cases. [...]
Presenting at ECS-Syd
Today, march 10th, Percepio founder and CEO Dr. Johan Kraft is giving a presentation at Embedded Conference Scandinavia Syd (in Malmö. Sweden) with the title Visualizing the Runtime World of Embedded Software - Benefits and Examples. Abstract Source code alone does not tell the full story, as software behavior also depends on inputs, code timing [...]
Customer Case: Unexpected Timing
We collect examples of how Tracealyzer has been of useful to our customers and have recreated similar issues to illustrate the benefits of our Tracealyzer tools for embedded software developers. In this case, a customer had an issue with a periodic task not running as expected, here called SamplerTask. This was the highest priority task [...]
Visit us at Embedded World
If you are at the Embedded World show, make plans to visit the Percepio team in Atmel's booth (4A/230) for a demo of Percepio's latest visualization tools, integrated with Atmel Studio. And don't miss "Visualising the Runtime World of Embedded Software - Benefits and Examples", given by Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft. The presentation will [...]
Introducing embOS-Trace and J-Link streaming
We are delighted to announce a new Tracealyzer targeting SEGGER embOS. The new Percepio embOS-Trace has been developed in collaboration with SEGGER to provide an unprecedented insight into the run-time world of SEGGER embOS applications. Percepio embOS-Trace is designed for use with SEGGER J-Link debuggers and allow for continuous trace streaming on any J-Link debugger, [...]
Support for all Atmel debuggers
We are happy to announce an update of FreeRTOS+Trace in Atmel Gallery. FreeRTOS+Trace now integrates much tighter with Atmel Studio and allowing for downloading the trace buffer using any debugger supported by Atmel Studio, both for ARM and AVR32. To use this feature, install the Atmel Gallery version and launch FreeRTOS+Trace from the "Tools" menu [...]
How does the floating licenses work?
Floating network licenses offer a flexible licensing solution for most development teams. With a floating license, you can install the tool on any number of computers, but the number of concurrent users is limited by the license server. If you need to support more concurrent users, you can extend the license to multiple floating seats. Our [...]
Tutorial with FreeRTOS founder Richard Barry
At Embedded Conference Scandinavia in early november 2014, Dr. Johan Kraft from Percepio and FreeRTOS founder Richard Barry gave a tutorial on FreeRTOS and FreeRTOS+Trace, using Atmel Studio and Atmel boards for the labs. The tutorial, "Getting Started with FreeRTOS and FreeRTOS+Trace", was a two hour hands-on workshop and we only had room for 20 [...]
Got error “uiTraceGetPriorityProperty: Invalid value for id”
If asserts are enabled the recorder configuration (trcConfig.h), this error is generated in uiTraceGetPriorityProperty when a task has an "object handle" value larger than expected. Our FreeRTOS recorder assignes each task an 8-bit "object handle" (the "id" parameter in uiTraceGetPriorityProperty), which should be in the range [1..NTask]. The NTask constant is defined in trcConfig.h and [...]
Tracing virtual hardware using Emul8 and Tracealyzer
At Embedded Conference Scandinavia, in November 2014, Percepio founder Dr. Johan Kraft presented a pilot project on integrating our tracing technology with Emul8, a system simulator providing virtual hardware platforms for embedded systems development. See the presentation (.pdf) Abstract Using a system simulator as a virtual hardware platform has several benefits for embedded software developers. [...]
Tips’n’tricks in new v2.7
Today we released v2.7 of our Tracealyzer tools. Apart from the key improvements, there are several smaller fixes that you can benefit from. Some are not that obvious, so here are some pointers: Easier selection in legend of horizontal views: The horizontal graphs offers a legend showing the color/name mapping. This also allows you to [...]
Tracealyzer 2.7
We are proud to announce the availability of Tracealyzer version 2.7, including FreeRTOS+Trace, Tracealyzer for Linux, Tracealyzer for VxWorks, and Tracealyzer for On Time RTOS-32. This is the largest update in two years! Key improvements include: Linux support: The Percepio Tracealyzer tools now also run on Linux, through Mono, an open source .NET framework supported [...]
Academic Users Everywhere
We offer free academic licenses for all our products, which mainly has been requested for our FreeRTOS version of Tracealyzer, FreeRTOS+Trace. On our last count, we have FreeRTOS+Trace users with academic licenses at 26 universities. It is great to see that so many students and researchers are seeing the value of software tracing! Germany seems [...]
Integration with MPLAB X IDE
We are pleased to announce an integration with Microchip MPLAB X IDE, which makes it much easier to use FreeRTOS+Trace with Microchip debuggers and boards. From v2.7 we also provide MPLAB demonstration projects for both PIC32MX and PIC32MZ. The integration is an MPLAB plugin that extract the trace data from the target system (from the [...]
How to define critical sections for the trace recorder?
Our Tracealyzer versions for microcontroller RTOS uses Percepio's own recorder library, which uses separate definitions for critical sections within the recorder. This since the standard critical sections offered by some RTOS kernels, like portENTER_CRITICAL/portEXIT_CRITICAL in FreeRTOS, might not safe to use from interrupt (kernel) context. Some recorder functions are called both from task-level and interrupt-level [...]
Presenting at ECS 2014
This year, we give two presentations at Embedded Conference Scandinavia. Day 1 (Nov. 4) at 09.30: Get started with FreeRTOS and FreeRTOS+Trace (with Richard Barry) Day 2 (Nov. 5) at 09.30 (yes, same time): Software tracing on virtual hardware using Emul8 and Tracealyzer To participate in the 2-hour FreeRTOS hands-on workshop, you need to sign up. There are [...]
Article in Design & Elektronik
Our recent article about Linux tracing with LTTng and Tracealyzer was recently published in a German translation by the leading publication Design & Elektronik. You find the article here.
Press Release: Carnica Technology new Percepio Reseller
PRESS RELEASE June 19th, 2014. Västerås, Sweden and Hermagor, Austria. CARNICA TECHNOLOGY® (http://www.carnica-technology.com), the Austrian specialist for embedded development solutions today announced the extension of its solutions portfolio through the distribution alliance with the Swedish company PERCEPIO (https://www.percepio.com), an internationally leading developer of visual trace diagnostics tools for embedded software development. Carnica Technology offers the [...]
Percepio at Elektronikexpo
If you happen to be in the Västerås area of Sweden on May 22, visit us at Elektronikexpo in Aros Congress Center.
Article in Elektroniktidningen
We recently contributed an article to the Swedish electronics magazine Elektroniktidningen, on the subject of software-based trace in Linux using LTTng and Tracealyzer. This is an extended version of the earlier article in Electronics Weekly, and in Swedish this time. The article is available here (PDF, 2.75 MB), with permission from Elektroniktidingen. I hope you [...]
Article in Electronics Weekly
We contributed an article on Linux tracing in the March edition of Electronics Weekly. The article is available online. We hope you like it. If you do, feel free to share the link!
Phaedrus Systems new UK Reseller
Västerås, Sweden and Tamworth, England, 28th April 2014 Percepio is happy to welcome Phaedrus Systems as the official reseller in the UK for the company’s Tracealyzer software tools. Tracealyzer is a family of highly visual diagnostics tools for embedded and Linux-based software that lets you look inside the runtime system in a new way. There [...]
New FreeRTOS+Trace Edition
FreeRTOS+Trace gives an unprecedented level of insight into the run-time world of embedded software based on FreeRTOS and OpenRTOS. This allows you to solve complex software problems in a fraction of the time otherwise needed, develop more robust designs to prevent future problems and find new ways to improve your software’s performance. We are now [...]
Press Release: Percepio partners with Antycip
PRESS RELEASE VÄSTERÅS, Sweden and PARIS, France, March 27th, 2014. Tracealyzer developer Percepio partners with Antycip Swedish trace tool developer Percepio is partnering with Antycip for distribution in France regarding Tracealyzer for Linux and FreeRTOS+Trace, the Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS. Percepio's Tracealyzer tools provide a new level of insight into embedded software’s run-time behavior during development, [...]
How to set ISR_TAILCHAINING_THRESHOLD?
To trace the execution of exception/interrupt handlers (ISRs), you need to call vTraceStoreISRBegin and vTraceStoreISREnd in the beginning and in the end of the handler function. The vTraceStoreISREnd routine normally assumes a return to the previously executing task. But sometimes another ISR is pending and executes in direct sequence, making this assumption incorrect. For instance, ARM Cortex-M devices [...]
FreeRTOS+Trace v2.6 released!
We are really excited to present our latest version of FreeRTOS+Trace, the Tracealyzer for FreeRTOS. This release of version 2.6 is the largest update in over a year (since v2.3) and includes support for FreeRTOS 8 and several other improvements. Apart from the new features, we are also introducing a new mid-level premium version, Standard [...]
Why do I get “error: ‘uxPendedTicks’ undeclared”?
If you get this error when compiling the recorder, you are probably using an older version of FreeRTOS (v7.5.x or earlier) together with a newer version of the recorder library. The FreeRTOS variable 'uxPendedTicks' was before v7.5.2 named 'uxMissedTicks', so you need to replace uxPendedTicks with uxMissedTicks in the definition of traceTASK_INCREMENT_TICK in trcKernelPort.h Update: [...]