Introduction
In this tutorial I will show you how to use Ozone to debug a Cyclone V SoC application.
Ozone is a full-featured graphical debugger for embedded applications. With Ozone
it is possible to debug any embedded application on C source and assembly level.
Ozone can load applications built with any toolchain / IDE or debug the target's
resident application without any source. Ozone includes all needed debug information
windows and makes use of the best performance of J-Link debug probes. The user interface is
designed to be used intuitively and is fully configurable. All windows can be moved, re-sized
and closed to fit the need of any developer. (Source: SEGGER)
Some preparations are needed for debugging in the external RAM of the Cyclone V SoC. Before the
debugging session can start in the external RAM, the memory interface and the CPU must be initialized.
This is not limited to the Cyclone V SoC itself, this is normal for the CPU architecture where
external RAM is used. E.g. in case of Linux, a so called "second level" bootloader and
"U-Boot" is used to initialize the CPU and the memory interface. After this process
an application, Linux, can be executed in the external RAM.
Here I want to debug a "Bare Metal" application. The debugger must do the job
and initialize the CPU before the start of the application. But Ozone itself
cannot handle this task alone.
Therefore, a program is started before the actual debug session which will handle the
initialisation process of the CPU.
Hardware
Here an Altera DE1-SoC Board was used:
Unfortunately the DE1-SoC board is not equipped with a 20pin JTAG connector. Therefore we need an
adapter. My selfmade adapter looks like:
The following wiring is needed:
DE1-SoC J5 |
JTAG 20pin |
Pin 1 |
Pin 9 |
Pin 2 |
Pin 12 (GND) |
Pin 3 |
Pin 13 |
Pin 4 |
Pin 1 |
Pin 5 |
Pin 7 |
Pin 6 |
Pin 15 |
Pin 7 |
NC |
Pin 8 |
Pin 3 |
Pin 9 |
Pin 5 |
Pin 10 |
Pin 4 (GND) |
If pin 2 of the DE1-SoC J5 is set to GND, the On-Board USB Blaster is disabled.
Software
At the time of creating this tutorial, the following software was installed:
Prepare and build de1socinit
The "second level" bootloader will be used to initialize the CPU for the
debug session. Here we will build a modified bootloader which will be used to initialize
the CPU only. To build this bootloader, the code generated by the BSP-Editor and parts
of the the "Minimal Preloader (MPL)" are used.
The BSP-Editor is used to generate a normal bootloader, the BOOT_FROM_QSPI option was
used. For more information please take a look at RocketBoards
here.
The generated source from this preloader is part of the GHRD design too.
The next part which is needed is the modified MPL source which can be find in the download
section, "de1socinit.zip".
Assuming you have already installed the GHRD
project in the "C:\my_design\de1soc-ghrd" folder. Download the "de1socinit.zip" file and
store and extract the ZIP file inside the "C:\my_design\de1soc-ghrd\hw\software" folder.
The result should look like:
Open the "SoC EDS 15.0 Command Shell", change to the de1socinit folder and use make:
After the build process the content of the de1socinit folder should look like:
Congratulation, you have created successful the "second level" bootloader de1socinit.
Build the application
Here I does not use the EDS environment. If you do not have a working
Bare Metal ARM built environment install the
Windows build tools and
GCC ARM Embedded Toolchain before.
Download the "de1soctest.zip" file and store and extract the ZIP file inside
the "C:\my_design\de1soc-ghrd\hw\software" folder. The result should look like:
de1soctest is the application here. Open the command line, change to the de1soctest folder and use make:
After the build process the content of de1soctest folder should look like:
The application has been successfully created, and we can start the debug session.
How to debug?
First of all make sure that the GHRD for the Altera DE1-SoC board is installed and running.
If the design is not running, take a look here
for how to program the FPGA.
Connect the J-Link to the PC and to the DE1-SoC (do not forget to power the target) and start
Ozone. Use "File / Open..."
and select the "de1soctest.jdebug" file inside the de1soctest folder. Ozone
should look like:

(Click inside the picture to expand)
Here you can see main.c from the de1soctest application. Ozone is prepared to
start the debug session of de1soctest now. Press the "Start" button or F5 to start
the debugger:
Ozone should look like:

(Click inside the picture to expand)
Now we are ready to debug the de1soctest application. You can step through the code with
the following buttons:
Step Over (F10)
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Step Into (F11)
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Take a look at the "Local Data" window. After seven steps (F10) the windows should
look like:
And the source window:
With the seven steps from above, the variables was set. And the next line will be
fa = fa + fd.
Note: The line which is highlighted is not yet executed This will be done with the next step.
How to set a breakpoint?
Setting a breakpoint is very easy. Click at the gray dot at the left of the line number:
Click at the gray dot in line 89, fa = fa + 2.6, a breakpoint will be set:
The red dot is the new breakpoint. You can remove the breakpoint by clicking on it again.
Now we want to resume, press the "Resume" button or (F5):
The program will be executed and it will stop at the breakpoint:
The value of the variables was changed to a = 17, b = 3, c = 20.
You can stop the debug session by pressing the "Stop" button:
This was now a quick introduction how to use Ozone to debug a Cortex-A9
application.
Download
de1socinit v20190524, for use with the EDS Command Shell (45 KB)
de1soctest v20190524, for use with the GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain (79 KB)
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