User manual

MPLAB

REAL ICE

™

IN-CIRCUIT

EMULATOR USER’S GUIDE

Chapter 1. Overview

1.1 INTRODUCTION

An overview of the MPLAB REAL ICE in-circuit emulator system is given.

• Emulator Defined

• How the Emulator Helps You

• Emulator Kit Components

• Device and Feature Support

1.2 EMULATOR DEFINED

The MPLAB REAL ICE in-circuit emulator is an in-circuit emulator that is controlled by

a PC running MPLAB IDE software on a Windows

platform. The MPLAB REAL ICE

in-circuit emulator is an integral part of the development engineer's toolsuite. The

application usage can vary from software development to hardware integration to

manufacturing test to field service.

The MPLAB REAL ICE in-circuit emulator is a modern emulator system that supports

hardware and software development for selected Microchip PIC

microcontrollers

(MCUs) and dsPIC

Digital Signal Controllers (DSCs) that are based on In-Circuit

Serial Programming™ (ICSP™) programming capability and Standard DUT

Programming (STDP) 2-wire serial interfaces.

The emulator system will execute code in an actual device because these Microchip

devices have built-in emulation circuitry, instead of a special emulator chip, for

emulation. All available features of a given device are accessible interactively, and can

be set and modified by the MPLAB IDE interface.

The MPLAB REAL ICE emulation concept has these features:

• Processors run at maximum speeds

• Debugging can be done with the device in-circuit

• No emulation load on the processor bus

• Simple interconnection

• Capability to incorporate I/O port data input

• Trace (MPLAB IDE and Compiler Assisted) – 8 and 16-bit devices

• Hardware Trace – 32-bit devices

In addition to emulator functions, the MPLAB REAL ICE in-circuit emulator system also

may be used as a development programmer.