Techniques and mechanisms for providing performance monitoring information. In an embodiment, a performance monitor circuit receives a communication which indicates a format comprising multiple fields which are each to store a respective count of monitored events. A programming of the performance monitor circuit, based on the communication, designates first bits and second bits of the register to provide, respectively, a first first field and a second field according to the format. Performance monitoring subsequent to the programming successively tallies a first count of first events which occur during a first period of time, and a second count of second events which occur during a second period of time. In another embodiment, performance monitoring results in the register concurrently storing both the first count and the second count.

Processor trace systems and methods are described. For example, one embodiment comprises executing instrumented code by a compiler, the instrumented code including at least one call to un-instrumented code. The compiler can determine the at least one call to un-instrumented code is a next call to be executed. A resume tracing instruction can be inserted into the instrumented code prior to the at least one call to the un-instrumented code. The resume tracing instruction can be executed to selectively add processor tracing to the at least one call to the un-instrumented code, and the at least one call to the un-instrumented code can be executed.

An apparatus includes operational circuitry and Hardware Diagnostics Circuitry (HDC). The HDC is configured to receive a definition of multiple trigger rules, each trigger rule specifying a respective trigger event as a function of trigger data sources in the operational circuitry, to receive a definition of (i) a pre-trigger logging set selected from among a plurality of diagnostics data sources in the operational circuitry, and (ii) for each trigger rule, a respective post-trigger logging set including a set of one or more of the diagnostics data sources, and, during operation of the operational circuitry, to log the diagnostics data sources in the pre-trigger logging set, to log the trigger data sources and to repeatedly evaluate the trigger rules, and, in response to triggering of a given trigger event by a given trigger rule, to start logging the diagnostics data sources in the post-trigger logging set of the given trigger rule.

An apparatus includes a plurality of processor circuits, a cache memory circuit, and a trace control circuit. The trace control circuit may be configured, in response to activation of a mode to record information indicative of program execution of at least one processor circuit of the plurality of processor circuits, to monitor memory requests transmitted between ones of the plurality of processor circuits and the cache memory circuit, and then to select a particular memory request of monitored memory requests using an arbitration algorithm. The trace control circuit may be further configured to allocate space in a trace buffer to the particular memory request, and to store, in the trace buffer, information associated with the particular memory request.

The disclosure describes a novel method and apparatus for improving the operation of a TAP architecture in a device through the use of Command signal inputs to the TAP architecture. In response to a Command signal input, the TAP architecture can perform streamlined and uninterrupted Update, Capture and Shift operation cycles to a target circuit in the device or streamlined and uninterrupted capture and shift operation cycles to a target circuit in the device. The Command signals can be input to the TAP architecture via the devices dedicated TMS or TDI inputs or via a separate CMD input to the device.

A testing tool includes a clock generation circuit generating a test clock and outputting the test clock via a test clock output pad, data processing circuitry clocked by the test clock, and data output circuitry receiving data output from the data processing circuitry and outputting the data via an input/output (IO) pad, the data output circuitry being clocked by the test clock. The testing tool also includes a programmable delay circuit generating a delayed version of the test clock, and data input circuitry receiving data input via the IO pad, the data input circuitry clocked by the delayed version of the test clock. The delayed version of the test clock is delayed to compensate for delay between transmission of a pulse of the test clock via the test clock output pad to an external computer and receipt of the data input from the external computer via the IO pad.

An event-processing unit for processing tokens associated with a state or state transition, herein also referred to as an event, of an external device is disclosed. The EPU allows token-processing schemes, in which the processing of incoming tokens and the further handling of a processing result by the EPU are determined not only by the token identifier, but also by the payload data of the incoming token or by data in the data memory. A flag-processing capability of a processing-control stage allows applying flag-processing operations such as logical operations to data obtained as a processing result of an ALU-processing operation. The result of these operations determines a subsequent handling of ALU-result data by the EPU. Thus, whether or not the ALU-result data is written to the data memory also influences the processing of any subsequent incoming tokens for which that data is used in the ALU-processing operation.

A computer-implemented method that includes monitoring execution of program code by first and second processor components. A computing system detects that a trigger condition is satisfied by: i) identifying an operand in a portion of the program code; or ii) determining that a current time of a clock of the computing system indicates a predefined time value. The operand and the predefined time value are used to initiate trace events. When the trigger condition is satisfied the system initiates trace events that generate trace data identifying respective hardware events occurring across the computing system. The system uses the trace data to generate a correlated set of trace data. The correlated trace data indicates a time ordered sequence of the respective hardware events. The system uses the correlated set of trace data to analyze performance of the executing program code.

A processor includes a front end, an execution unit, a retirement stage, a counter, and a performance monitoring unit. The front end includes logic to receive an event instruction to enable supervision of a front end event that will delay execution of instructions. The execution unit includes logic to set a register with parameters for supervision of the front end event. The front end further includes logic to receive a candidate instruction and match the candidate instruction to the front end event. The counter includes logic to generate the front end event upon retirement of the candidate instruction.

A predictive model for equipment fail modes. An anomaly is detected in a collection of trace data, then key features are calculated. A search is conducted for the same or similar anomalies having the same key features in a database of past trace data. If the same anomaly occurred before and is in the database, then the type of anomaly, its root cause, and action steps to correct can be retrieved from the database.