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 Hello Kenny, 
  
your request comes at a good time, I 
think! 
  
There has been quite some discussion on generalized target 
descriptions for debuggers, 
most of it on the device debugging subproject and driven by 
Aaron Spear of Accelerated 
Technology / Mentor Graphics. We are looking towards 
adopting standards from the 
SPIRIT consortium for hardware descriptions, and providing 
input to SPIRIT for requirements 
that we think are needed for driving debuggers from these 
descriptions. 
  
Aaron owns the Target Descriptions technology sub-group, 
which is shared between the 
Target Management and Device Debugging 
projects: 
  
While there has been quite some progress regarding file 
formats for generalized hardware 
descriptions, we have just recently come to a point where 
we need to think about how 
to provide those descriptions to the tools 
eventually: 
  
Part of this has been annotated by TI's Martin 
Swiezawski: 
  
Kenny, 
your input to this group will certainly be highly appreciated and 
valuable. 
Please 
go forward explaining your vision, what you have and what you want to 
achieve. 
I'm 
sure Aaron and others on the group will get in touch with you 
directly. 
Thanks, Martin -- Martin Oberhuber - 
WindRiver, Austria +43(662)457915-85
  
   
  
  
  
  Martin & 
  David, 
    
  I’m a project manager with Texas 
  Instruments’ software tools support group in Houston, Texas. We provide the compilers, linkers, 
  JTAG emulators, target content libraries, IDE, etc. for all TI parts. For some 
  time, my dept has been kicking around the idea for a “unified target 
  description” component that would provide a debug tool set “everything it 
  needs to know” about a system’s on-board debug resources, based on data 
  artifacts generated by the chip design team’s 
  workflow. 
    
  I was assigned to ID stakeholders 
  and gather requests, in the process of which one of them pointed me to your 
  subproject. This is interesting, as our department is adopting Eclipse as an 
  “equal” to our own proprietary product, Code Composer 
  Studio. 
    
  I’ve been encouraged to adopt open 
  standards whenever possible, and contribute what we develop freely (as long as 
  it doesn’t disclose TI IP, etc.). What I have so far is a Vision spec and a 
  good set of stakeholder requests from groups internal to TI. I also have a 
  good working relationship with several of the design teams, and they’re open 
  to providing me system content data generated by their tooling. Currently it’s 
  limited to register / bitfield descriptions, but everything’s on the 
  table. 
    
  I believe we have mutually 
  compatible goals, and would like more information on the current state of your 
  target description work, and roadmap specific to that. I’m not as interested 
  in the connectivity / management aspects 
  presently. 
    
  Thanks, 
  --Kenny 
  Aron 
  Project Manager, 
  SDO 
  Texas 
  Instruments 
Incorporated   
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