The debug capabilities that CrossWorks for MSP430 provides will depend on the MSP430 device that is used. There are two target properties that report the debug capabilities of the MSP430 device which are displayed in the Emulation section of the target properties window. These are the Clock Control property which determines which clocks are allowed to run when a breakpoint has occured and the Emulation Level property which determines the breakpoint capabilities of the MSP430.

###### Emulation Level

There are three levels of emulation provided on MSP430 devices that CrossWorks for MSP430 support. Devices with Low emulation level provide two breakpoints. Devices with Medium emulation level provide three hardware breakpoints. Devices with High emulation level provide 8 hardware breakpoints. Devices with High emulation level support data read/write and register write breakpoints as well as conventional program execution breakpoints. When debugging with CrossWorks for MSP430 one of the breakpoints will be needed to implement single stepping, so you may get an error when you try to single step and have used up all of the hardware breakpoints.

###### Clock Control

There are three levels of clock control provided on MSP430 devices that CrossWorks for MSP430 support. Devices with None clock control allow all timers to continue to run on breakpoint. You should ensure that the watchdog is disabled when debugging with devices that have None clock control. A software clock control is implemented in CrossWorks for MSP430 that can be used to hold other timers. Devices with Standard clock control allow the clock sources of the MSP430 to be stopped, for example the SMCLK can be stopped. Devices with Extended clock control allow particular modules that are clocked from a particular clock source to be stopped, for example the Timer A module clocked on SMCLK can be stopped but other modules that are clocked on SMCLK will not be stopped.

You can use the Clock Control dialog from the Debug | Control menu to specify the particular clock control settings you want. Note that these settings are saved in the session file so will need to be specified for each project you develop. The settings that are reported by the Clock Control dialog are specific to a particular device. All devices will show the Software Clock Control settings. Devices with Standard clock control will show settings to stop ACLK, SMCLK and TACLK. Devices with Extended clock control will show settings to stop particular peripherals that are on ACLK, SMCLK and MCLK and will show the set of modules that can be stopped.

###### MSP430 device capabilities

This table gives an overview of the debug capabilities of various MSP430 devices.

MSP430 device capabilities
Device | Emulation | Clock Control
--- | --- | ---
MSP430F13x | Medium | None
MSP430F14x | Medium | None
MSP430F41x | Low | Standard
MSP430F11x1A | Low | None
MSP430F12x | Low | None
MSP430F43x | High | Extended
MSP430F44x | High | Extended
MSP430F11x2 | Low | None
MSP430F12x2 | Low | None
MSP430FE42x | Low | Standard
MSP430F42x | Low | Standard
MSP430FW42x | Low | Standard
MSP430F42x0 | Low | Standard
MSP430F15x | High | Extended
MSP430F16x | High | Extended
MSP430FG43x | Low | Extended
MSP430F21x1 | Low | Standard
MSP430F20xx | Low | Standard