P&E produces a set of interface libraries which allow the user to directly control the USB PowerPC
Nexus Multilink from any Windows Development environment which can interact with a DLL. The
interface libraries come with examples for controlling the Multilink interface from Microsoft Visual C as
well as Borland Delphi. Details of the libraries for the PowerPC 55xx (UNITPPCNEXUS) may be found
at http://www.pemicro.com/products/product_processor.cfm?family=12.
9.0 Firmware Updates
The latest version of the firmware for the Multilink interface is included in P&E’s software development
kits. When the debugger or programmer is run, if it detects that the Multilink interface firmware needs to
be updated, it will ask the user’s permission to do this. If permission is granted, the update happens
automatically.
Alternately, the latest version of the firmware may be downloaded from the “Firmware Updates” section
of P&E’s online “Support Center” located at
http://www.pemicro.com
. This firmware includes a utility
which may be used to run the firmware update.
10.0 Software Packages
P&E provides several software packages which work with our PowerPC Nexus interfaces:
ICDPPCNEXUS – Source-level PowerPC Nexus debugger. This simple and easy to use debugger
supports source-level debugging on PowerPC devices including: source-level debug, software load,
hardware breakpoints, watch and memory windows, CPU display, special purpose register read/write,
and more…
PROGPPCNEXUS - Flash programmer (both interactive and automated for production). This flash
programmer is supported by a large library of flash configurations. New flash configurations are
constantly being created and the latest can be downloaded from: http://www.pemicro.com. The flash
programmer automates the task of programming flash and does not require a boot-loader to be resident
in the target.
UNITPPCNEXUS – DLL-based drivers that allow PC-based application control of the PowerPC
processor through the debug interface. Routines are provided to read and write memory, start and stop
the processor, load code, single step, and more. Also, examples are provided for some development
environments including the Microsoft Visual Studio. The libraries can be used from any development/test
platform which can link to a DLL.
The UNITPPCNEXUS library is used by other third-party vendors to enable their software packages to
work via P&E’s PowerPC Nexus interfaces.