MASKING WITHIN A DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM HAVING APPLICABILITY FOR A DEVELOPMENT INTERFACE

摘要

In current real-time debug systems, debug messages are transmitted through a limited bandwidth port (18) from an integrated circuit (10) to an external development system (25). As some integrated circuits (10) become even more densely packed with multiple bus masters (11, 12) and/or multiple busses (16) capable of generating messages, it is becoming more and more difficult for the limited bandwidth port (18) to sufficiently support the volume of debug messages that are to be transmitted from an integrated circuit (10) to an external development system (25). A plurality of masks (70, 80, 90, 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150) and masking circuitry (36) may be used to selectively mask portions (41-45, 51-55) of debug messages (40, 50) in order to significantly improve bandwidth.