Board Chip Definition (BCD) files are configuration files used by RVD. They are usually associated with multi-ICE or RealView ICE (RVI) or RVI-ME connections.
They exist as text files with a .bcd extension
in the %RVDEBUG_INSTALL%\etc directory. RVD
includes sample BCD files for ARM supplied development platforms.
BCD files are generally used to perform two main tasks:
Provide an enumerated view of registers and peripherals on your target hardware. In RVD this feature is described as Extended Target Visibility (ETV).
Describe the memory map of your target and control how RVD behaves when accessing these different areas of memory.
The nature of BCD files means that they are target specific. You will need to develop your own BCD to describe the memory map and registers for your target.
The screen shot above shows the contents of the RVD Process Control and Register panes when a BCD file is associated with a connection to an ARM development board.
The board’s memory map can be seen graphically in the Process Control pane Map tab. Different memory types (RAM, ROM, Flash etc) are shown in colour coded blocks.
ETV register definitions are visible as new tabs in the RVD register pane. In this example the control register for Timer 1 is visible. The timer configuration can be changed by direct edits to these fields or by right clicking and selecting enumerated options.
This Application Note uses a simulator connection to demonstrate and explain the functionality of BCD files.
PDF version
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