Computer Hardware User Manual

SPRAA56
DSP/BIOS Real-Time Analysis (RTA) and Debugging Applied to a Video Application 5
2.1 DSP/BIOS and RF5 Components Used
The base application leverages various DSP/BIOS real-time analysis components to support
debugging capabilities that are not intrusive to the system performance. The following three
modules are included with the core DSP/BIOS library, and can be used in any application that
uses DSP/BIOS and on any TI DSP supported by DSP/BIOS:
• LOG – Logging events
• STS – Statistics accumulators
• TRC – Control of real-time capture
In addition to these DSP/BIOS components, the application also uses the UTL module for
debugging and diagnostics. This module is provided in the Reference Frameworks
distribution. The UTL module is described in more detail in Reference Frameworks for
eXpressDSP Software: API Reference (SPRA147).
In addition to modules used for real-time analysis and debugging, the base application uses the
following DSP/BIOS and Reference Frameworks (RF) modules.
• MBX – Mailbox software module for inter-task communication (DSP/BIOS)
• TSK – Task scheduling module (DSP/BIOS)
• SCOM – Synchronization and pointer-passing mechanism for data flow between TSKs (RF)
• CHAN – Instantiates and serially executes xDAIS-compliant algorithms (RF)
• CELL – Container for xDAIS algorithms in a CHAN (RF)
• ALGRF – Encapsulates the procedure for xDAIS algorithm instantiation (RF)
The following module provides an interface to the video port device driver, and is described in
The TMS320DM642 Video Port Mini-Driver (SPRA918).
• FVID – Frame Video APIs for communicating with video port device drivers
A brief description of the DSP/BIOS and RF5 modules used extensively in benchmarking the
application is given in the following subsections.
2.1.1 LOG
The LOG module captures events in real time while the target program executes. You can use
the system log (LOG_system) or create user-defined logs, such as myTrace. Log buffers are of
a fixed size and reside in data memory. Individual messages use four words of storage in the
log's buffer. The first word holds a sequence number that allows the Event Log to display logs in
the correct order. The remaining three words contain data specified by the call that writes the
message to the log. The LOG module is much less intrusive to a running system (both in MIPS
and memory) than the RTS printf function, while providing a similar capability.