Patent ID: 8578216

Claim:
An execution history tracing method of tracing an execution history of a CPU upon executing, in a semiconductor device including the CPU, a program by using the CPU, for a tracing target, from outside the semiconductor device via software, the execution history tracing method comprising: recording, in a buffer, target information as trace information about an execution of one or more tracing target, for each instruction execution cycle in which the target information is produced as the execution history; and performing data sorting by using the software to group the trace information about the execution of the one or more tracing target, the trace information being recorded for the each instruction execution cycle, for each of the one or more tracing target, wherein in the recording, the trace information is recorded in the buffer having a bit width that allows for storing all the target information that is produced in the each instruction execution cycle using a trace frame format having a fixed bit width for the each instruction and is larger than a bit width of the CPU.