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Answers
to Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Nexus 5001™ Forum?
The Nexus 5001™ Forum, a program of the IEEE-ISTO, is an industry group
chartered to define and implement a global, open microcontroller
development interface standard for all embedded controller
applications.
2. Who are the members of Nexus 5001™ Forum?
Many of the Nexus 5001 Forum members are
embedded processor manufacturers and tool vendors. The founding members
include representatives from ETAS, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi
Semiconductor, Infineon, and Motorola.
3. How can my company/organization become a member of the
Nexus 5001™ Forum?
Visit the membership page or contact the
Nexus 5001™ Forum at Nexus-admin@nexus5001.org
4. Is this standard applicable globally?
Yes. It is intended to be a global, open industry microcontroller
development interface standard that will be implemented on a worldwide
basis across all markets and regions.
5. Are there any licensing or royalty fees involved?
As a condition of membership, each Member of the Nexus 5001 Forum shall
agree to grant to other Members a license under nondiscriminatory and
reasonable terms and conditions a reciprocal, nonexclusive license
under any of its patent claims that are necessarily infringed by a
compliant implementation of a version of the standard or specification
developed by the Forum.
6. How is the interface different from existing interfaces
and what makes it so innovative?
It's requirements and specifications are based upon open public domain
information. It evolves from existing interfaces, consolidating best of
class features from several existing manufacturer's approaches and then
adding new capabilities that are critical to embedded applications such
as Automotive. The performance capability of the interface is specified
to be scalable in pin count.
7. Is this new open standard compatible with any available
interface?
IEEE-ISTO 5001™-1999, The Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard for a Global
Embedded Processor Debug Interface attempts to leverage on existing
technology and standards wherever possible, but since today no common
standard exists, compatibility to any existing interface is not
expected. This is a "clean slate" approach with a focus on embedded
controller MCU's and tools applications.
8. Why are we introducing this interface standard now?
Embedded control applications are now beginning to utilize higher
performance MCU's which often limit pinout access. Applying MCU's
efficiently requires development tools that can work closely with the
MCU, however, these development tools need access to critical MCU
functionality. We are addressing a strong customer demand for reduced
customization and faster time to market for these applications. Since
development, verification and tuning of embedded controller
applications represent a significant amount of time and investment, it
is imperative that both the semiconductor suppliers and tool vendors
react accordingly to improve on current approaches.
9. Will this standard obsolete existing interfaces on
MCU's today?
Not immediately. In time, the Nexus 5001™
Forum Standardinterface could replace the many different
interfaces that are common today across the many different MCU
architectures. MCU providers can continue to offer proprietary
interfaces if they wish, but with an open standard, it is expected that
more off-the-shelf development tools would be available for open
standard based interface implementation.
10. Will customers be able to easily adopt to this
standard- interface?
Yes. Implementation of this standard interface provides for scalable
performance capability. Since it is not a proprietary interface, it is
expected that more commercial standard tools will be available -
thereby greatly improving the development, debug, qualification and
tuning of your embedded controller applications.
11. How can my company be involved, provide inputs, and
get technical information?
All companies are encouraged to join the Nexus 5001™ Forum, a program
of the IEEE-ISTO. Forum membership allows companies to offer feedback
to the current standard and influence future directions of the Forum.
Visit the membership page or contact the
Nexus 5001™ Forum at Nexus-admin@nexus5001.org
for membership information.
12. Is it the intention of the Nexus 5001™ Forum to make
this an IEEE standard?
The Nexus 5001 Forum chose the IEEE-ISTO as the operational and legal
forum to provide support services to facilitate their day-to-day
activities, including the publication, distribution, and management of IEEE-ISTO 5001™-1999. Additionally, the IEEE
Vehicular Technology Society has offered to serve as the IEEE
Society sponsor should the Nexus 5001 Forum wish to submit the document
to the IEEE Standards Association
Standards Board for approval as an IEEE Standard.
13. Are other companies planning to endorse/adopt the
standard?
Absolutely, although at this time the Forum may not disclose specific
companies, who must make their own endorsements public. In addition to
current Forum members, other companies,
representing a wide spectrum of semiconductor suppliers and tools
vendors that are active in the market today, have expressed their
interest.
14. How will compliance to the standard be verified?
Involvement and endorsement from all interested parties is essential
for the verification of this new standard. The technical committee has
agreed to help define verification criteria that could be used to
insure compliance to the standard. The specification process/method for
compliance verification has yet to be determined. The IEEE-ISTO shall
serve as the administrator for the future validation program.
15. What does this interface offer and what are the key
benefits for customers?
This interface provides the necessary support for Low Intrusion Run
Control, Program Flow reconstruction and Data Messaging for Logic
Analysis, Low Intrusion Data monitoring and modification for
Calibration/Data Table tuning, and coprocessor communication support
for Rapid Prototyping. This allows the customer to accomplish all these
tasks with a single common standard interface. This reduces tool and
design costs, as well as NRE fees for customization work. This also
allows the same toolset to be used across microprocessor families and
control modules from different vendors.
16. Which application areas will benefit the most from
this standard?
Traditional applications within the automotive powertrain, data
communications and computer peripheral market segments are most likely
to benefit from this new standard interface. Wireless Systems and
industrial control applications are also likely prospects for the early
adoption of this interface.
17. Will the H/W interface be 100% compatible between
different MCU's?
Yes. The interface will be consistent across all architectures that
choose to adopt it. The only differences in the HW interface revolve
around the pin count scalability.
18. Does this mean that all Nexus 5001 compliant tools
will be the same?
Not necessarily. Specific features and capabilities will often be
different between the various tools and tools vendors in the market.
However, the customers will have more of a choice regarding which tool
to use, since the adaptation of the tools to the specific MCU will no
longer require the customization development they currently experience
with existing proprietary interfaces.
19. When will the tools be made available to support the
interface?
It is expected that the tools to support the interface will be
available on the market at the same time as the actual MCU silicon
implementations are made available.
20. When can customers expect to see silicon based
products?
Nexus 5001™ Forum founding MCU companies expect to see the first fully
integrated MCU design utilizing the new standard development interface
in the first half of 2000.
21. Is this standard applicable for 32-bit MCU's only?
This standard development interface is intended for implementation on a
wide range of MCU architectures throughout the 16 and 32 bit arena.
22. Does the interface support rapid prototyping and
real-time simulation?
Yes, but specific bandwidth capabilities are dependent upon the
implementation since the performance capability is scalable.
23. The standard appears to be very automotive biased and
specifically focused towards powertrain. Do you have other applications
outside of the automotive arena targeted for the Nexus 5001™ interface
and, if so, when will this happen?
The Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard is intended have MORE THAN just
automotive applications. The Forum is actively working with other
semiconductor and development tools manufacturers to ensure that the
debug interface standard meets the requirements of other embedded
applications, such as communications, computer peripherals, and
consumer products.
24. How fast a CPU frequency does the standard support?
What is the maximum operating frequency? What is the interface
frequency?
The answer to these questions is very much vendor specific and depends
upon a number of factors including pad driving capabilities and
internal CPU clock speeds.
25. Does the Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard take into
consideration calibration capacity?
Yes. Supporting capabilities for calibration has always been a
consideration while developing the standard.
26. Can we use a Nexus 5001™ interface for rapid
prototyping?
Yes, the necessary capabilities for calibration have been provided.
27. Is the scope of the Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard
limited to specifying just the auxiliary pins?
Yes, the standard covers all embedded control arenas covering 8, 16 and
32 bit processors.
29. Is there a requirement within the Nexus 5001™
Forum Standard for special additional tools?
The standard does not specify which tools are to be used.
30. Regarding data monitoring, how many data values can
the user monitor?
It is possible to define one or more memory ranges in which the
accesses are monitored to the outside world via the Nexus port. It is
also be possible to switch on/off these dynamic ranges. Both features
are very much vendor-specific.
31. Does the Nexus 5001™ Forum only approve HP and
ETAS as tool vendors? Will other tool vendors be allowed to implement a
nexus specification on their own tool chain?
The Nexus 5001™ interface is an open industry standard which is not
limited to Hewlett-Packard and ETAS. The more tool vendors that choose
to endorse and implement the interface, the more successful the
standard will become.
32. Will the Forum limit any patent or API of the Nexus
5001 ™ interface throughout the other semiconductor
manufacturers?
Absolutely not. To be Nexus 5001™ compliant, other semiconductor
vendors must meet the global, open, interface standard.
33. How fast will the trace-sampling rate be for use with
an RTOS?
This is a vendor-specific question that will be dictated by the
internal bus width and clock speed to provide the required bandwidth.
34. Is security protection for on-chip flash memory
specified in the Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard?
Yes, there is a flash security protection that is vendor-specific and
not an integral part of the standard.
35. Cables and/or interconnects within an engine test
setup can often be susceptible to noise and EMC. Does the Nexus 5001
Forum™ Standard address this common problem?
The Nexus 5001™ interface connector will be sufficiently robust to
protect against spurious noise from the outside world.
36. Are there any software standards from Nexus (API)
applied to the interface along side the protocol layer?
Not at this time. However, there is an initiative to explore the
possibility of a generic Nexus API.
37. Is there commitment from semiconductor vendors to
support non-automotive applications?
All semiconductor members within the forum have long-term commitments
outside of the automotive arena to suggest that there will likely be a
number of embedded application areas utilizing the resources of a Nexus
5001™ interface.
38. Does the Nexus 5001 Forum™ realize some security
levels as found in the CAN/car calibration (CCP2 standard for
measurements)?
All protocol questions are currently outside the scope of the Nexus
5001™ Forum Standard.
39. Is it possible that there will be too many external
parameters to handle as they are serially moved back and forth via the
auxiliary pins to external virtual memory?
Yes, essentially there could be many parameters to handle across the
serial line, hence the reason why there will be the need for each
semiconductor vendor to provide additional RAM/Flash resources on-chip.
40. Does the Nexus 5001™ Forum define a minimum Nexus
auxiliary port of 16 pins?
No. The Nexus 5001™ Forum Standard for Global Embedded Processor Debug
Interface can scale from 3 pins and up.
41. Does the Nexus 5001™ Forum intend to provide the VHDL
code for the Nexus interface description?
The Nexus 5001™ Forum is currently considering the feasibility of
providing interested parties with a VHDL model of the Nexus interface
behavior.
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Organization. All rights reserved. The IEEE-ISTO is affiliated with the IEEE and the IEEE Standards Association. IEEE-ISTO
5001 and Nexus 5001 Forum are trademarks of the IEEE-ISTO.
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