Overview

Description

Integrated Software Development Environment

Innovative and Open Development Environment
The e² studio is a development environment based on Eclipse. Eclipse is a popular and extensible open-source development environment used by many semiconductor companies.

For R-Car V-series, a special version of e² studio is available which focuses on the creation of high-performance Computer Vision applications for ADAS solutions. R-Car SoCs have an advanced HW architecture: the high-performance multi-core CPU is accelerated by dedicated accelerator cores for image processing. The accelerators are connected to the CPU via a high-speed communication bus.

Ease Software Development for Computer Vision and Deep Learning Algorithms
To debug and optimize the application, the state of each of these resources (CPU, bus, accelerator IPs) and their interaction need to be visualized. R-Car SoC utilizes Arm's technology for tracing and debugging called CoreSight. Dedicated CoreSight hardware (HW) elements allow analysis of the application run-time at a low overhead.

Renesas' e² studio IDE connects to the CoreSight HW on the development board, retrieves (and stores) the trace data, and gives various options for viewing the results. For visualization, the open-source tracing framework called Trace Compass is used. This allows simple integration of available OS-specific profiling features (e.g., LTTng for Linux) and Renesas-specific features for bus and accelerator monitoring. Depending on the use case, an inexpensive Ethernet cable, connection to JTAG via Lauterbach’s in-circuit emulator, or a high-speed trace connection can be utilized.

The input from the camera and the intermediate steps of image processing can also be displayed so that the developer can easily spot possible issues in the algorithm.

Ease to Access: Download the complete development suite for an evaluation
New developers can download an evaluation license for e² studio free of charge. For a commercial license, please contact a Renesas representative.

Features

  • Supported devices: R-Car V3H, R-Car V3M, and R-Car S4
  • Multithreaded programming environment: The e² studio includes a unified GUI provided by Eclipse that supports programming for the IMP-X5’s built-in 64-thread processor. The e² studio for R-Car V3M incorporates the newly developed IMP-X 5-dedicated ccimp C compiler which enables development in C programming language. It also provides a feature that debugs the operation of threads on a step-by-step basis from the GUI, which contributes to reducing the man-hours required for program development to approximately one-tenth.
  • Image viewer: The IDE with a simple UI configuration enables system developers to check the image generated by IMP-X5 directly from the GUI. This eliminates the need to store the image for image verification, making it easier to check images.
  • IP tracer: The e² studio visualizes the interaction between subcomponents in IMP-X5, which enables software developers to solve complex software errors linked to a specific IP at an early stage. This contributes to a shorter software development period.
  • Bus Traffic Monitor: The IDE monitors the amount of data being transferred through the complex bus structure in the SoC. In the past, data transfer delays were identified by trial and error. With the e² studio, developers can pinpoint the bottleneck, reducing the time required for software tuning by half.
  • Multi-Core Debug and Trace: Multiple heterogeneous processor cores (Arm core/ RH850 core) integrated in R-Car S4 can be debugged and traced simultaneously. This allows for a shorter time to identify the cause and analyze problems in systems where multiple cores work together to achieve a function.
  • Debug and Trace Tools for Multi-Devices: Multiple devices such as R-Car S4 and RH850/U2A can be simultaneously synchronized for debugging and tracing. This reduces the time required to locate and determine the cause of problems in the software that operates in cooperation on multiple devices.

Feature Support Matrix

FeatureV SeriesS Series
Multithreaded Programming Environmentcheck-
Image Viewercheck-
IP Tracercheck-
Bus Traffic Monitorcheckcheck
Multi-Core Debug and Trace-check

Applications

Target Devices

Design & Development