A prototype engineering tester for microcode and hardware debugging

Abstract

A custom test system was developed to assist in the integration of the microcode and components of a VLSI VAX Microcomputer prototype system. Microcode debugging ease (on the hardware) and leverage is gained by hierarchical accumulation of access and execution operations for the prototype. VAX-11 750-computer-based software and custom UNIBUS-interconnect-based tester hardware comprise this Engineering Tester (fondly called ET). Interactively entered high-level commands to ET software communicate with the tester hardware and the prototype through UNIBUS control and data registers. This paper presents a summary of the methodology and CAD verification tools used in designing the VLSI VAX system. the software and hardware architecture of ET. a look at the implementation and at the leverage gained by building ET based on existing software and hardware tools, and finally, a review of ET applications during the debug phase.