The last days i was a bit struggeling with the Asynchronous Serial Interface of my last years Board. Today i realized that i have to rework my selfmade console whole from the bottom up but lets start at the beginning of the weekend…

As i mentioned already, the functionality of the new PCB would be the same as in the last year, only downsizing all components to minimum size. Last weekend i took the software and a reserve board from last year, to take a look at the integrated Watchdog of the X-by-Wire Multi Voltage Supply Unit (Infineon TLE6368).

After doing a bit debugging i realized that the printf’s i used for all debug statements were taking incredible long processing time. Time i cannot give for debugging, because a live debug when communicating with all systems in the car would not be possible anymore, because some printf’s take more than 10ms and for the Watchdog of the Supply Unit and the ECU in the Car, some critical Data (Watchdog Reset SPI and Throttle Postition over CAN) has to be provided within 10ms Cycle Time. This is a bit like a hard real time system, because the ECU needs the new data within the 10ms to avoid computing false parameters for the Motor Control Units…

So I decided to do some rework of my Software respectively the Asynchronous Serial Interface for Live Debug Support. Maybe i can post some pictures of the old debug Interface and the cycle times for the used printf’s…