• ETRI Journal
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.44-54
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• 2012

Because of the intrinsic lack of internal-system observability and controllability in highly integrated multicore processors, very restricted access is allowed for the debugging of erroneous chip behavior. Therefore, the building of an efficient debug function is an important consideration in the design of multicore processors. In this paper, we propose a flexible on-chip debug architecture that embeds a special logic supporting the debug functionality in the multicore processor. It is designed to support run-stop-type debug functions that can halt and control the execution of the multicore processor at breakpoint events and inspect the possible causes of any errors. The debug architecture consists of the following three functional components: the core debug support block, the multicore debug support block, and the debug interface and control block. By embedding this debug infrastructure, the embedded processor cores within the multicore processor can be debugged simultaneously as well as independently. The debug control is performed by employing a JTAG-based scanning operation. We apply this on-chip debug architecture to build a debugger for a prototype multicore processor and demonstrate the validity and scalability of our approach.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.301-310
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• 2013

Nowadays, the multicore processor is watched with interest by people all over the world. As the design technology of system on chip has developed, observing and controlling the processor core's internal state has not been easy. Therefore, multicore processor debugging is very difficult and time-consuming. Thus, we need a reliable and efficient debugger to find the bugs. In this paper, we propose an on-chip debug architecture for multicore processors that is easily adaptable and flexible. It is based on the JTAG standard and supports monitoring mode debugging, which is different from run-stop mode debugging. Compared with the debug architecture that supports the run-stop mode debugging, the proposed architecture is easily applied to a debugger and has the advantage of having a desirable gate count and execution cycle. To verify the on-chip debug architecture, it is applied to the debugger of the prototype multicore processor and is tested by interconnecting it with a software debugger based on GDB and configured for the target processor.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.684-690
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• 2010

Most of the existing SoCs have shared bus architecture which always has a bottleneck state. The more IPs are in an SOC, the less performance it is of the SOC, Therefore, its performance is effected by the entire communication rather than CPU speed. In this paper, we propose cross-bar switch bus architecture for the reduction of the bottleneck state and the improvement of the performance. The cross-bar switch bus supports up to 8 masters and 16 slaves and parallel communication with architecture of multiple channel bus. Each slave has an arbiter which stores priority information about masters. So, it prevents only one master occupying one slave and supports efficient communication. We compared WISHBONE on-chip shared bus architecture with crossbar switch bus architecture of the SOC platform, which consists of an OpenRISC processor, a VGA/LCD controller, an AC97 controller, a debug interface, a memory interface, and the performance improved by 26.58% than the previous shared bus.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.281-284
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• 2008

This paper describes ASIC design of multimedia SoC Platform. The implemented Platform consists of 32-bit OpenRISC1200 Microprocessor, WISHBONE on-chip bus, VGA Controller, Debug Interface, SRAM Interface and UART. The 32-bit OpenRISC1200 processor has 5 stage pipeline and Harvard architecture with separated instruction/data bus. The VGA Controller can display RCB data on a CRT or LCD monitor. The Debug Interface supports a debugging function for the Platform. The SRAM Interface supports 18-bit address bus and 32-bit data bus. The UART provides RS232 protocol, which supports serial communication function. The Platform is design and verified on a Xilinx VERTEX-4 XC4VLX80 FPGA board. Test code is generated by a cross compiler' and JTAG utility software and gdb are used to download the test code to the FPGA board through parallel cable. Finally, the Platform is implemented into a single ASIC chip using Chatered 0.18um process and it can operate at 100MHz clock frequency.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.49 no.9
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• pp.251-258
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• 2012

Recently, NAND Flash memory structure is evolving from SDR (Single Data Rate) to high speed DDR(Double Data Rate) to fulfill the high performance requirement of SSD and SSS. Accordingly, the proper ways of transferring data that latches valid data stably and minimizing data skew between pins by using PHY(Physical layer) circuit techniques have became new issues. Also, rapid growth of speed in NAND flash increases the operating frequency and power consumption of NAND flash controller. Internal voltage variation margin of NAND flash controller will be narrowed through the smaller geometry and lower internal operating voltage below 1.5V. Therefore, the increase of power budge deviation limits the normal operation range of internal circuit. Affection of OCV(On Chip Variation) deteriorates the voltage variation problem and thus causes internal logic errors. In this case, it is too hard to debug, because it is not functional faults. In this paper, we propose new architecture that maintains the valid timing window in cost effective way under sudden power fluctuation cases. Simulation results show that the proposed technique minimizes the data skew by 379% with reduced area by 20% compared to using PHY circuits.