Segger Ferrous Systems Team for Rust Debug

Segger, a company based in Germany, has partnered with Ferrous Systems to leverage the Ferrocene toolchain for the Rust programming language in conjunction with J-Trace streaming trace probes. This collaboration aims to enhance the capabilities of embedded-systems developers by providing detailed insights into firmware operation, down to the instruction level. The joint demonstration by the two companies at embedded world 2025 highlighted the integration of Segger’s Ozone debugger and J-Trace probes, showcasing the advanced functionalities available to developers.

J-Trace is designed to be compatible with the output of nearly any toolchain, enabling Ozone to serve as both a debugger and a performance analyzer. With a comprehensive set of debugging controls, Ozone goes a step further by offering features for advanced analysis, such as instruction tracing and code profiling. This integration opens up new possibilities for developers seeking to optimize their embedded systems and streamline the debugging process.

Building on its recent support for Rust in Ozone, Segger has collaborated with Ferrous Systems to integrate Ozone with Ferrocene, marking a significant milestone in the development of open-source Rust toolchains. This collaboration ensures that the toolchain is qualified for safety- and mission-critical applications, aligning with industry standards such as ISO 26262 for automotive use, IEC 61508 for industrial use, and ISO 62304 for medical applications.

One of the key components of Ferrous Systems’s test application is RTIC, an open-source real-time operating system (RTOS) written in Rust. Additionally, the application leverages the efficient deferred-formatting framework "defmt," which is part of Ferrous Systems’s Knurling-rs project. Jonathan Pallant, Senior Embedded Engineer at Ferrous Systems, emphasizes the efficiency improvements offered by defmt compared to traditional logging approaches, highlighting the benefits of this collaboration with Segger.

Expressing enthusiasm for the partnership, Johannes Lask, Product Manager at Segger, acknowledges the increasing interest in Rust for commercial systems and the seamless integration of Ferrous Systems’s Ferrocene toolchain with Ozone and J-Trace. The collaboration between Segger and Ferrous Systems represents a significant step forward in empowering developers with innovative tools and technologies to enhance the performance and reliability of embedded systems.