completely open source debugging, is this possible?

[cdwijs]

Hi All,

i have worked with PIC16, PIC18, PIc24, ATmega, and ATtiny chips. All those chips have in common that the protocol used to debug them is secret. Therefore it's impossible to debug them with anything other than the tools of the manufacturer.

Is there a line of microcontrollers that have a documented way to debug them?

Kind regards,
Cedric

[andersm]

Anything Cortex-M. PIC32s also have standard MIPS EJTAG interfaces in addition to Microchip's proprietary interface. Atmel's debugWIRE protocol has been partly reverse-engineered.

Edit: Freescale's BDM protocol is public, and TI seems to have published source code for the MSP430 debug interface.

[Maxlor]

A few years ago, we used OpenOCD to program and debug an ARM926 chip. Since OpenOCD is open source, I assume the debug protocol is public or has at least been suitably well reverse engineered.

[Ian.M]

The classic PIC18F on-chip debug silicon has been reverse engineered.   http://jaromir.xf.cz/hdeb/hdeb.html

[Karel]

Is there a line of microcontrollers that have a documented way to debug them?

PIC32 Family Reference Manual, Sect. 33 Programming and Diagnostics:

http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/61129F.pdf

[legacy]

BDM protocol

excluding 683xx

[Brutte]

Hi All,

i have worked with PIC16, PIC18, PIc24, ATmega, and ATtiny chips. All those chips have in common that the protocol used to debug them is secret. Therefore it's impossible to debug them with anything other than the tools of the manufacturer.

Is there a line of microcontrollers that have a documented way to debug them?

Kind regards,
Cedric

The JTAG for AVR8 is not very reverse-engineered but JTAGICEMk1 (m16+quartz) works with many AVR8s and avarice. At least for me. I have posted my findings on Avrfreaks but Atmel was not particularly happy about that and removed my posts and images..
As mentioned, dW is reverse-engineered a bit but I do not know about any implementation.
Also, the Happy Jtag 2 dongle (closed source) does some debugging on some ATXmegas and ATMegas.
Do not bother with AVRs.

STM8 has full documentation on their debugging protocol (search ST)
Same with ARM, both JTAG, SWD and even ETM.
PIC32 works ok with PICKit2 (via ejtagproxy).

[legacy]

"Intellectual Property", "Copyright", "Royalty", have you ever heard  ?
it's money to refund your effort 

[uncle_bob]

Hi All,

i have worked with PIC16, PIC18, PIc24, ATmega, and ATtiny chips. All those chips have in common that the protocol used to debug them is secret. Therefore it's impossible to debug them with anything other than the tools of the manufacturer.

Is there a line of microcontrollers that have a documented way to debug them?

Kind regards,
Cedric

Hi

In addition to published protocols and specs, most ARM devices (Freescale included) have open source firmware for driving the debug port. You can deal with the process from a fairly high level if you wish.

All that said, the open source stuff is not as stable as the commercial products.

Bob