About SoftConsole and this document

Important

This documentation is deprecated and it’s not recommended to be used on new projects.

Visit https://mi-v-ecosystem.github.io/SoftConsole-Documentation/ instead.

This is manual for Microchip SoftConsole v2021.1.

For first-time users the manual is strongly recommended to be read in full at least once. The installation might require extra manual steps.

And it is recommended to search for the error messages in the troubleshooting section when encountering a issue:

Flashpro and OpenOCD

Project settings

RISC-V

RISC-V Trap Exceptions

Arm

Renode troubleshooting

Renode networking

Eclipse

Note

Users of previous releases should watch for changes and in the What is new chapter and re-read all affected chapters.

Variants

The SoftConsole manual is distributed in three variants:

• Containing information relevant to both Windows and Linux users

• Containing information relevant to only Windows users

• Containing information relevant to only Linux users

The online documentation contains both OSs, while documentation installed with specific SoftConsole contains only information relevant to its host OS.

Currently you are reading the: Windows and Linux variant.

Download offline versions

The documentation can be downloaded for ‘offline’ use. Because various versions are generated, there is an option to download variant which covers only the user’s host operating system and doesn’t include irrelevant information. Or download variant which covers both operating systems.

Both Windows and Linux

Only Windows

Only Linux

Used terms

This document uses <SoftConsole-install-dir> as a placeholder for the actual SoftConsole install directory. Where this is mentioned substitute the actual SoftConsole install directory name.

• Windows example: C:\Microchip\SoftConsole_v2021.1

• Linux example: $HOME/Microchip/SoftConsole_v2021.1

Breadcrumbs

Often in this document, there are steps described in ‘breadcrumbs’ form such as this:

Usually these breadcrumbs reference a GUI location where to click or how to navigate the menus, submenus, their tabs/dialogs. There are few common places where these breadcrumbs start:

• The SoftConsole Menu toolbar as starting location, example:

  

  Which is located under the Window’s title:

  

• The Project's properties as starting location, example:

  

  Which requires the user to first go into Project’s settings/properties by following these steps:

  

  

  This opens the following menu and can be navigated with the breadcrumbs:

  

  

• The launchers Debug configuration as starting location, example:

  

  Which requires the user to open the corresponding debug launcher associated with your project:

  

  Note

  Each project might have multiple Debug Launchers associated with the project, for example one hw for Hardware targets and one Renode for Renode emulated targets. User needs to select the coresponding launcher within the context of the SoftConsole chapter. Renode troubleshooting guide will expect users to select the Renode variants of the launchers.

  This will open the following dialog menu:

  

What is new

SoftConsole 2021.1

Features

• Support for programming PolarFire SoC boot mode 0/1/2/3. Please refer to /extras/mpfs/mpfs-bootmodes-readme.txt for full details.

  • Extra attention needs to be paid for boards which do not have SMK initialized yet and extra steps in Libero/FlashProExpress are necessary.

• Original SoftConsole v6.4 Bash script-based support for boot modes 0/1 replaced by a Java utility program that supports all boot modes. The built_tools on Linux version were removed in the process as the bundled bash/shell scripting is not needed, and still the bundled bash/zsh/shell on the distribution can be used.

• Improved custom Eclipse launcher for SoftConsole which generates our recommended workspace settings when creating new workspace.

• Fixed a bug in CDT whereby register groups that were previously configured got lost whenever a debug connection attempt failed.

• Please refer to the table in the section below for details of FlashPro programmer support in SoftConsole v2021.1.

Known issues

All issues inherited from 6.5 (see SoftConsole 6.5 Known issues)

FlashPro support matrix

	Standalone FlashPro6	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev B	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev A	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro5	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro4	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro3/LCPS
Windows	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
Linux	Yes	Yes		Yes
Virtual Machine
Docker on Linux	Yes	Yes		Yes
Debug PolarFire SoC MSS Core Complex	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
PolarFire SoC UltraSoC trace/debug	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via JTAG signals on I/O pins	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Cortex-M1 soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Cortex-M1 soft core via JTAG signals on I/O pins	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes

Note

Refer to the Libero SoC v12.5 SP1 or Program Debug Tools v12.5 SP1 (or later) release notes for details of how to upgrade the Embedded FlashPro6 from Rev A to Rev B.

Note

Empty cells mean there is no support.

SoftConsole 6.5

Features

• Support for PolarFire SoC Icicle board’s Embedded FlashPro6 Rev B for debugging a PolarFire SoC MSS (Microcontroller Subsystem) RISC-V multicore core complex based SoC.

• Newer RISC-V GDB with improved performance (the first connection after power cycle significanly improved)

• Adding support for embedded and standalone FP6

Known issues

• Port selection when multiple FlashPros are connected might not work.

• Providing the symbol files in the debug launchers are necessary to avoid errors on RV32 targets (see launchers of example projects).

• The Icicle board’s Embedded FlashPro6 programmer must be upgraded from Rev A to Rev B for it to work with SoftConsole. Refer to the Libero SoC v12.5 SP1 or Program Debug Tools v12.5 SP1 (or later) release notes for details of how to upgrade the Embedded FlashPro6 from Rev A to Rev B. The following table below summarizes the FlashPro support in SoftConsole v6.5 and later.

FlashPro support matrix

	Standalone FlashPro6	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev B	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev A	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro5	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro4	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro3/LCPS
Windows	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
Linux	Yes	Yes		Yes
Virtual Machine
Docker on Linux	Yes	Yes		Yes
Debug PolarFire SoC MSS Core Complex	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	Yes
PolarFire SoC UltraSoC trace/debug	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via JTAG signals on I/O pins	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Cortex-M1 soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Cortex-M1 soft core via JTAG signals on I/O pins	Yes			Yes	Yes	Yes

Note

Refer to the Libero SoC v12.5 SP1 or Program Debug Tools v12.5 SP1 (or later) release notes for details of how to upgrade the Embedded FlashPro6 from Rev A to Rev B.

Note

Empty cells mean there is no support.

SoftConsole 6.3

Features

• Static portable Python runtime bundled with SoftConsole, to allow the PolarFire Configuration generate corresponding header files before each build.

FlashPro support matrix

	Standalone FlashPro6	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev B	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev A	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro5	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro4	Standalone & Embedded FlashPro3/LCPS
Windows				Yes	Yes	Yes
Linux				Yes
Virtual Machine
Docker on Linux				Yes
Debug PolarFire SoC MSS Core Complex				Yes	Yes	Yes
PolarFire SoC UltraSoC trace/debug				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Mi-V RV32 RISCV soft core via JTAG signals on I/O pins				Yes	Yes	Yes
Debug Cortex-M1 soft core via CoreJTAGDebug/UJTAG				Yes	Yes	Yes
Cortex-M1 soft core debug via JTAG signals on I/O pins				Yes	Yes	Yes

Note

Empty cells mean there is no support.