Teledyne LeCroy SAS Suite User Manual - Manual (Page 64)

Version 6.25 SASSuite User Manual
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LeCroy Corporation
OOB Signal
By selecting this option, the user can control the recording of OOB (Out of Band) traffic,
which may not be of interest to some users. Clicking on this item brings up the following
screen:
By default, OOB traffic (including COMINIT, COMWAKE and COMSAS) is recorded on
all channels. Through changing the checkboxes on this screen, the user can exclude
OOB traffic of certain types of specified channels from the recording.
Additional Filtering Capability
Note that under a broad definition of "filtering" (i.e., any user selections that prevent all
data traffic from being recorded into the trace memory buffer), we have already described
(in other sections) selections which can be made which result in filtering of various types.
For example, under the General screen, data payloads can be truncated after a specified
number of Dwords to limit the amount of data which occupies trace memory.
Also, in the Channel Settings screen, individual channels can be selected to be recorded
or not to be recorded, as the user wishes. This is also a type of filtering.
Global Rules And Sequences
In addition to the filtering functions described above, the Triggering/Filtering screen
provides a means for developing logical sequences of actions based on events that
occur. One example of this is to create conditions that generate a trigger.
Creating a trigger condition can range from an extremely simple exercise that requires
only one condition to be met, to a complex series of multiple events with precise timing
requirements all of which must be met before a trigger is issued. Why would so much
sophistication be needed in developing a trigger? The answer lies in the type of problem
being pursued by the user. For initial development, recordings may be made without
triggers at all. Simply start the analyzer, run the test, and look at the traffic that resulted.
As the system becomes more sophisticated, the user may need to add simple triggers to
enable the analyzer to focus on the data of interest in the midst of continuous, unrelated
traffic. Finally, when pursuing rare or intermittent bugs, the user may need to trigger on
a complex series of events that occurs either shortly before or after the problem of
interest.
The Avalanche system is well equipped to manage all these types of issues, providing
novice users with a simple mechanism to generate simple results, and allowing
engineers the flexibility to develop sophisticated state machines to extract critical data
from heavily loaded communication channels.
The Avalanche system supports three independent state machines, which can be easily
"programmed" using simple menu selections which result in clear and well-defined
instructions which can be read "in simple English".