editor's blog
Subscribe Now

Third-Generation Debugger

SpringSoft just announced the next major version of their popular Verdi debug tool. Calling it Verdi3, they say they’ve done some major upgrades in three areas: the way users work with the tool; the way the tool can interact with other tools; and the engines under the hood.

The first of those three is “simply” a productivity and ease-of-use issue. They redid the GUI, with a couple effects. The first is that what used to be individual windows that you had to click back and forth between are now tiles that fit in a single unifying window so that it feels more like a single tool. Second, you can customize and personalize what tiles go where according to what you’re doing on your project. And when you shut the tool down, it will come back just as you set it – no having to reconstruct the workspace each time.

The interaction with other tools comes via their VIA interchange capability, which we looked at before. While data access was already available, you can now integrate third-party tool windows directly into the cockpit. This is also what enabled the integration with Synopsys’s Protocol Analyzer, announced along with Synopsys’s Discovery VIP launch.

Under the hood, they’ve made three improvements. The first is an improved parser that handles the full Verilog 2009 syntax and leaves behind some of the limitations of the prior parser and improves the incremental save capability. The second is a new version of the FSDB format, FSDB 5.0 that provides a 30% smaller file than the previous version. Finally, they’ve multi-threaded the FSDB reader to improve the “Get Signals” time by 45%.

More information is available in their release.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Jul 11, 2025
Can you help me track down the source of the poem titled 'The African Tigger is Fading Away'?...

Libby's Lab

Libby's Lab - Scopes out Littelfuse C&K Aerospace AeroSplice Connectors

Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Littelfuse

Join Libby and Demo in this episode of “Libby’s Lab” as they explore the Littelfuse C&K Aerospace Aerosplice Connectors, available at Mouser.com! These connectors are ideal for high-reliability easy-to-use wire-to-wire connections in aerospace applications. Keep your circuits charged and your ideas sparking!

Click here for more information

featured paper

Maximize Power Efficiency in Embedded Applications with Agilex™ 5 E-Series FPGAs and SoCs Memory Solutions

Sponsored by Altera

Learn how Altera Agilex™ 5 FPGAs and SoCs deliver up to 1.9× lower system power than Zynq UltraScale+ without sacrificing performance. This white paper dives into real benchmark data, memory interface efficiency, and architectural advantages that make Agilex 5 the smart choice for embedded, vision, and AI edge applications. Optimize for power, performance, and design simplicity.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

STM32 Security for IoT
Today’s modern embedded systems face a range of security risks that can stem from a variety of different sources including insecure communication protocols, hardware vulnerabilities, and physical tampering. In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Thierry Crespo from STMicroelectronics explore the biggest security challenges facing embedded designers today, the benefits of the STM32 Trust platform, and why the STM32Trust TEE Secure Manager is an IoT security game changer.
Aug 20, 2024
39,960 views