The Kinetis target supports hardware and software tracepoints for trace collection. Hardware tracepoints use hardware resources to start and stop trace. Hardware tracepoints allow only four comparators to be set for trace collection because they use DWT comparators to start or stop the trace collection. Software tracepoints on the other hand do not use hardware resources and generate interrupts from software to start and stop trace. They allow you to install infinite number of comparators for trace collection and are more intrusive.