MTB specifics
Contents
The ARM Micro Trace Buffer (MTB) is an on-chip trace buffer that allows to do post-mortem instruction trace via a regular J-Link with no need of a specific J-Trace unit. The MTB will use a specific amount of the on-chip RAM to store trace data while the core executes instructions. MTB is mainly used on smaller MCUs like Cortex-M0+/M23/M33 based ones.
Limitations
MTB is a very limited version of trace that has the following limitations:
- Instruction trace support only
- No streaming trace possible
- A portion of the target RAM may not be used by the application if MTB is used
RAM usage
Most MTBs have a trace buffer between 2 KB and 8 KB. By default, J-Link uses 512 bytes for MTB, starting at the MTB_BASE addr.
Configuration options provided by J-Link
An MTB consists of the following registers / bit fields that allow configuration of the MTB and the amount of RAM it uses:
| Register / Bit field | Description |
|---|---|
| MTB_BASE | 32-bit register that specifies the base address of the MTB buffer |
| MTB_POINTER | 32-bit register that specifies the offset (rel. to BASE) where the next trace packet will be stored by the HW |
| MTB_MASTER.MASK | 5-bit bitfield that specifies the wrap-around point for the auto-inc logic of the MTB, on packet store |
While the MTB_BASE register is read-only for J-Link, the MTB_POINTER and MTB_MASTER.MASK can be written by J-Link. This allows the MTB RAM usage to be configured.
Default J-Link config
- J-Link reads out MTB_BASE to determine the base addr. of the MTB buffer
- J-Link writes the POINTER register to find out the MTB buffer size
- J-Link sets the POINTER register to 0 to start using the MTB buffer at MTB_BASE
- J-Link sets the MTB_MASTER.MASK to 4 to provide a 512 byte wrap-around (setting the RAM usage to 512 bytes, starting at MTB_BASE)
