Patent ID: 7944234

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an event-trigger state machine to monitor an event function subset of input signal paths, to transition to a programmable state at the occurrence of a programmable set of events associated with an event function subset of signals on the event function subset of input signal paths, and to generate a binary pattern associated with the programmable state; a storage control module coupled to the event-trigger state machine to store states associated with a storage subset of signals on a storage subset of input signal paths at a time relative to a transition to the programmable state upon a determination that a set of storage criteria has been met; and a storage filtering module coupled to the storage control module to apply at least one programmable filter to a storage filter subset of signals on a storage filter subset of input signal paths and to trigger the storage control module to store the storage subset of signals if an output of the programmable filter indicates that programmable conditions associated with the storage filter subset of signals are satisfied.