There are two main communication setups, depending on the type of target system. Many of the arm cores have built-in, on-chip debug support. Because the hardware debugger logic is built into the core, no ordinary ROM-monitor program or extra specific hardware is needed to make the debugging work, other than the debug probe. For some devices that do not have such built-in, on-chip debug support, there is instead a ROM-monitor debugger solution that can be used.

Overview of a target system with a debug probe or emulator

Most target systems have an emulator, a debug probe or a debug adapter connected between the host computer and the evaluation board:

When a USB connection is used, a specific USB driver must be installed before you can use the probe over the USB port. You can find the driver on the IAR Embedded Workbench for Arm installation media.