About SoftConsole and this document¶

This is manual the for Microchip SoftConsole v2022.2-RISC-V.

SoftConsole is Microchip’s free and primarily open-source based software development environment for Windows and GNU/Linux facilitating the rapid development of bare-metal and RTOS based C/C++ software for Microchip CPU and SoC (System on Chip) based FPGAs.It provides development and debugging support for all Microchip SoC FPGAs and 32-bit soft IP CPUs.

SoftConsole can be downloaded for free from Microchip’s website.

Running miv-rv32imaf-cpp example with Renode: IDE screenshot

Running mpfs-mustein example with Renode: IDE screenshot2

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

Renode troubleshooting

Eclipse

Note

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

Documentation variants¶

The SoftConsole documentation is distributed in three variants:

Containing information relevant to both Windows and Linux users deployed online
Containing information relevant to only Windows users shipped with Windows SoftConsole
Containing information relevant to only Linux users shipped with Linux SoftConsole

The online documentation contains both OSs and can be updated/improved even after the SoftConsole release. While documentation installed with specific SoftConsole contains only information relevant to its host OS and can be viewed without an internet connection.

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> and <SC_INSTALL_DIR> as a placeholders for the actual SoftConsole install directory. Where this is mentioned substitute the actual SoftConsole install directory name.

Windows example: C:\Microchip\SoftConsole_v2022.2-747-RISC-V
Linux example: $HOME/Microchip/SoftConsole_v2022.2-747-RISC-V

Breadcrumbs¶

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

digraph {
graph [rankdir="LR", ranksep=.01, bgcolor=transparent];
node [fontname="Verdana", fontsize="9", shape="rectangle", width=.1, height=.2, margin=".04,.01", style=filled, fillcolor=white];
edge [arrowsize=.7];
"Do A first" -> "Then do B" -> "Finally do C"
}

These breadcrumbs usually 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:

$digraph { graph [rankdir="LR", ranksep=.01, bgcolor=transparent]; node [fontname="Verdana", style=filled, fillcolor=white, fontsize="9", shape="rectangle", width=.1, height=.2, margin=".04,.01"]; edge [arrowsize=.7]; "Right click on <your_project> in the Project Explorer" -> "Properties"; }$

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:

$digraph { graph [rankdir="LR", ranksep=.01, bgcolor=transparent]; node [fontname="Verdana", style=filled, fillcolor=white, fontsize="9", shape="rectangle", width=.1, height=.2, margin=".04,.01"]; edge [arrowsize=.7]; "SoftConsole Menu toolbar" -> "Run" -> "Debug Configurations" -> "Launcher for \<YOUR_PROJECT\>"; }$

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 2022.2 for RISC-V¶

Features¶

This release is focused on RISC-V support
Java
- Switching from OpenJDK to JustJ vendor
- Upgrading to v17

Eclipse

Eclipse upgraded to v4.22
CDT upgraded to v10.5.0
- Using upstream starter.exe instead of our fork. The aggressive shutdown timing is fixed in the upstream.
GUI
- Dedicated documentation link Help -> Documentation
- Welcome page plugin with useful links is shown on the first startup and can be invoked with Help -> Welcome
- Can detect multiple PolarFire SoC MSS Configurator configs and allow users to invoke PolarFire SoC MSS Configurator with them
  
  Note
  
  This feature requires a compatible project to work correctly. There are no compatible projects (including the bundled example projects) at the time of SoftConsole 2022.2 release. Projects deployed on GitHub should start utilizing this feature in the future.
  
  For more information see the PolarFire SoC MSS Configurator launcher section.
- JDC Helper allowing users to update content of eNVM clients without the need to run Libero or having access to the Libero design project. More information in JDC Helper section.
- Can specify an external web browser (on Windows)
- Launch bar, Click here for more Eclipse/CDT info. If required, the launch bar can be disabled from the preferences page.
Console, Terminal and color support
- Terminal 4-bit, 8-bit and 24-bit color support
- Can edit the terminal palette from preferences
- Terminal colors can be inverted
- Terminal tabs can be renamed
- Paths inside the Terminal and URLs can be clicked with CTRL + left click
- Arbitrary baud rates supported in the Serial terminal
- Console supports word wrap
- The build console has now its own close button
- The bring to top toggle button is now in the toolbar and in the preferences as well
- Console’s Find Next and Find Previous
Editors
- Dedicated assembly editor associated with .lst list files
- The last edit location remembers history and allows to go forward and backwards (icons added to the main toolbar as well)
- Dedicated launcher view – showing launchers in a convenient manner
- Support for a new pragma #pragma mark added which improves the readability of the code outline
- C++17 constructor template deduction supported
Debugging
- Secondary Debug icons added to the debug view/tab
- Alternative way added to disable all breakpoints
- Eclipse now drops its internal caches when gdb’s load is invoked
- Improved memory viewer (allows floating-point, asci and other ways of rendering the memory)
  - Floating point view
  - String view
  - Traditional view
Headless builder
- Multiple builds of multiple projects running in one go could have caused an exit code to masked and report falsely a successful build. Now any subproject build failure will cause the whole build to fail

Projects

Redundant projects removed (mandelbrot and raytracer demos combined into one project)
Few of the bundled projects build much faster, see Parallel builds section for more information.

The miv-rv32i-systick-blinky project supports the new soft processor MIV_RV32 and legacy soft processor MIV_RV32IMA_L1_AHB, MIV_RV32IMA_L1_AXI and MIV_RV32IMAF_L1_AHB as well. This requires extra attention to what build configuration can be used with what target and with what launcher:

Configuration	Target	Launcher to debug with Renode
miv32i-Debug	new RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-rv32i Start-platform-and-debug
miv32i-Release	new RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-rv32i Start-platform-and-debug
miv32ima-Debug	legacy RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-legacy-rv32 Start-platform-and-debug
miv32ima-Release	legacy RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-legacy-rv32 Start-platform-and-debug
miv32imc-Debug	new RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-rv32i Start-platform-and-debug
miv32imc-Release	new RV32	miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Renode-rv32i Start-platform-and-debug

Note

When targeting real Hardware, then all the configurations are using the same launcher miv-rv32i-systick-blinky Hw Debug. However the connected board must have matching design. For the new core it needs to be 2022.1 release of MIV_RV32 with ESS memory map (such as DGC2 config). And for the legacy core it needs to be 2022.1 release of MIV_RV32IMA_L1_AHB, MIV_RV32IMA_L1_AXI or MIV_RV32IMAF_L1_AHB (for example CFG1 config). The reset vector for legacy core changed in this release and using older builds of this core is not recomended.

Renode
- Upgraded to v1.13.1 release
- Includes support for Mi-RV32 IMAF legacy cores and Mi-RV32 cores
- Improved speeds of GDB startup and tlib runtime
- CoreGPIO supports fixed IO config. See the Fixed configuration of a GPIO peripheral section for more details.
- Optional installer step to install Renode sources
- Added Scratchpad L2 zero device memory region
- Renode’s Monitor (by default) is embedded into the terminal (it’s possible to return to the original behaviour, read the Embedded monitor window section)
Installer
- CAL library integration removed from the installer

Bug fixes and SARs¶

Eclipse
- Missing X button to close views SAR 123248
- Removed redundant and broken ‘copy settings’ option from the launcher SAR 123476
- Issues with links in the Welcome page SAR 124454
- Git freezing on Windows. SAR 125155
- Shared SoftConsole installation. SAR 115585
- Launcher’s error message can sometimes display a badly formatted path in the text SAR 124471
- 33 bugs resolved in the upstream
OpenOCD
- FlashPro port selection fixed. SAR 119110
MPFS boot mode programmer
- Styling bug in the verbose log fixed (no SAR reference).
Documentation
- Discrepancy in the number of hardware breakpoints between PFSoC TRM and SoftConsole. SAR 123621
Projects
- Mi-V example projects using old HAL. SAR 113988
- mpfs-gpio-interrupt example has updated HAL (no SAR reference).
- A malloc() issue with C++. SAR 120920
Renode
- Renode freezing when embedding the monitor. SAR 123436
- Renode DDR was overlapping with the FIC. SAR 125178
- Renode freezing when its UART is overloaded. SAR 123718 and SAR 123717
- Renode not showing CSR registers in the Register Window. SAR 114512
- PLIC crashes when enabling PLIC IRQ on multiple harts. SAR 107418
- QSPI model not indicating correctly TXDONE and RXDONE. SAR 109794
- QSPI model not supporting QSPIMODE[2:0] modes. SAR 109794
- Watchdog IRQs cleared correctly. SAR 110415
- Watchdog refresh issues. SAR 110524
- Renode interacting with host based devices (UART -> Socket -> UDP). SAR 124676
- Compiling models on Windows with JIT. SAR 120739
- Non-responding UART terminal on low-end Linux machines (no SAR reference). Please read the UART analyzer not responding section for the fix instructions.
- CoreGPIO Renode model doesn’t support fixed IO config. See the Fixed configuration of a GPIO peripheral section for more details. SAR 115138

Known issues¶

Providing the symbol files in the debug launchers is necessary to avoid errors on RV32 targets (see launchers of example projects).
The DDR training on Renode targets is extremely slow and applications do not reach the main breakpoint for an extensive time. DDR on Renode doesn’t have to be trained, it works reliably instantly on the ‘power-up’. Applications targeting Renode can disable the DDR training to avoid this issue. For more details see the Renode troubleshooting section.

FlashPro support matrix¶

	Standalone FlashPro6	Embedded FlashPro6 Rev B	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
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 v2022.2 or Program Debug Tools v2022.2 (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 2021.3¶

Note

SoftConsole v2021.3 software was removed from the Microchip website The features listed in this section are supported by SoftConsole v2022.2 and later releases.