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Debug

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13.12 Debugging in a cached system

Debugging must be non-invasive in a cached system. In processor based systems, you can

preserve the contents of the cache so the state of the target application is not altered, and to

maintain memory coherency during debugging.

To preserve the contents of the level one cache, you can disable the Instruction Cache and Data

Cache line fills so read misses from main memory do not update the caches. You can put the

caches in this mode by programming the operation of the caches during debug using CP14 c10.

See CP14 c10, Debug State Cache Control Register on page 13-23. This facility is accessible

from both the core and DBGTAP debugger sides.

In Debug state, the caches behave as follows, for memory coherency purposes:

• Cache reads behave as for normal operation.

• Writes are covered in Data cache writes.

• ARMv6 includes CP15 instructions for cleaning and invalidating the cache content, See

c7, Cache operations on page 3-69. These instructions enable you to reset the processor

memory system to a known safe state, and are accessible from both the core and the

DBGTAP debugger side.

When the processor is in Secure User mode and SPIDEN is not asserted, only the User mode

CP15 registers are accessible with the exception of Invalidate Instruction Cache Range and

Flush Entire BTAC that are always accessible in Debug state.

13.12.1 Data cache writes

The problem with Data Cache writes is that, while debugging, you might want to write some

instructions to memory, either some code to be debugged or a BKPT instruction. This poses

coherency issues on the Instruction Cache. In processor based systems, CP14 c10, the Debug

State Cache Control Register, enables you to use the following features:

• You can put the processor in a state where data writes work as if the cache is enabled and

every region of memory is Write-Through. See CP14 c10, Debug State Cache Control

• ARMv6 architecture provides CP15 instructions for invalidating the Instruction Cache,

specifically Invalidate Instruction Cache range and Flush Entire Branch Target Address

Cache, that c7, Cache operations on page 3-69 describes, to ensure that, after a write,

there are no out-of-date words in the Instruction Cache.

ARM ARM1176JZF-S User Manual

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