Intel® Quartus® Prime Standard Edition User Guide: Debug Tools

ID 683552
Date 9/24/2018
Public
Document Table of Contents

5.3.7.2. Segmented Buffer

In a segmented buffer, the acquisition memory is split into segments of even size, and you define a set of trigger conditions for each segment. Each segment acts as a non-segmented buffer. A segmented buffer allows you to debug systems that contain relatively infrequent recurring events.

If you want to have separate trigger conditions for each of the segmented buffers, you must use the state-based trigger flow. The figure shows an example of a segmented buffer system.

Figure 43. System that Generates Recurring EventsIn this design, you want to ensure that the correct data is written to the SRAM controller by monitoring the RDATA port whenever the address H'0F0F0F0F is sent into the RADDR port.

With the buffer acquisition feature. you can monitor multiple read transactions from the SRAM device without running the Signal Tap Logic Analyzer again, because you split the memory to capture the same event multiple times, without wasting allocated memory. The buffer captures as many cycles as the number of segments you define under the Data settings in the Signal Configuration pane.

To enable and configure buffer acquisition, select Segmented in the Signal Tap Logic Analyzer Editor and determine the number of segments to use. In the example in the figure, selecting sixty-four 64-sample segments allows you to capture 64 read cycles.