Active Firmware Tools™ is one person.
The hardware, the FPGA, the firmware, the desktop software, the trace format, the documentation, the website, and the support inbox all come back to me. My name is Tim Harvey. I'm in Temecula, California, and I build the Active-Pro® family of firmware debuggers and logic analyzers.
I've been doing this since 1983.
I've spent more than forty years designing embedded systems, writing firmware, working with processors and protocols, and building the hardware and software that make those systems work.
Along the way, I've used just about every generation of debugging and test equipment available to firmware engineers. That experience gave me a very clear understanding of what belongs on an engineer's bench and what makes a tool genuinely useful when the system is running at full speed.
In 2002, I founded USBee Test Pods. Over the next twenty years, we shipped tens of thousands of units to engineers around the world. Building that company gave me decades of experience designing, manufacturing, supporting, and improving engineering instruments used in real development environments.
By the time Active Firmware Tools came along, I had spent a career learning this work from the inside.
I wanted a better way to see what was happening.
My engineering work today is focused on embedded systems where multiple processors, high-speed interfaces, and complex protocols all have to work together. These are the kinds of systems where understanding exactly what happened, and when it happened, matters.
I wanted an instrument that could watch those systems while they were running, capture the information at full speed, and give me a clear picture of what was actually happening across the design.
So I built the Active-Pro.
It started with one simple idea: give a firmware engineer a much better view of a running system.
That idea shaped everything that followed, from the hardware and FPGA design to the firmware, desktop application, trace format, and automation capabilities.
I use it on the systems I build.
The Active-Pro is used every day in my engineering work at WebSec Corporation, where I work on embedded hardware for demanding applications.
That work includes IFF transponders and key loaders, multiple processors, high-speed interfaces, and protocols including CHSI, RGMII, and DS-101. The systems have to perform at full speed, and the information you can see while they are running can make all the difference.
That's the environment the Active-Pro was built for. It gives me the visibility I need into the hardware and firmware I work with every day.
The result is an instrument that comes from actual engineering experience rather than theory. I know what I want to see because I'm the one looking for it.
They use it on theirs, too.
You know who's behind the instrument.
Active Firmware Tools is not a large organization with layers between the engineer and the product.
I design the hardware. I write the firmware. I develop the software. I work on the trace format and automation tools. I write the documentation. I answer the support emails.
That keeps the entire product connected to the engineering work that created it. The person making decisions about the instrument is the same person who uses it.
It also means I can stay focused on what matters most: building a serious engineering instrument and making it as useful as possible to the people who put it on their benches.
Five things you can expect from me.
Replace that tired logic analyzer.
It can only see the signals on the outside. It knows nothing about what's happening inside the processor, inside the firmware, or between the systems you're trying to understand.
That's why I built the Active-Pro.
So I could quickly say: