TECHNIQUES FOR GENERATING TRACE STREAM FOR DATA PROCESSING APPARATUS

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide techniques for generating a trace stream for a data processing apparatus containing trace elements indicative of activities of certain logic of the data processing apparatus, so as to enable more effective use of a finite bandwidth and of a finite size of any trace buffer in which those trace elements are buffered.SOLUTION: The data processing apparatus comprises: logic for producing data elements; and trace logic for producing a stream of trace elements representative of at least some of the data elements. The trace logic is arranged to include trace timing indicators in the stream. Each of the trace timing indicators indicates one or more processing timing intervals which are a predetermined plurality of clock cycles. Thereby, analysis at a single cycle accuracy level is realized with a smaller number of trace elements.