[ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

All,
    I am potentially going to be adding support to eCos/RedBoot to
support multiple flash types in the same executable.  The reason for
this is the desire to use the cheapest flash available at any given
time.  That potentially means bouncing between Intel, AMD/Spansion,
....  We currently support this in our products using custom boot
code.  We are looking to migrate to RedBoot.  For us this is a
requirement.

    First, I must ask this question, "Has this already been done or is
somebody in the process of doing this?"  Second, will the
configuration tool support something like this?  It would require the
ability to select an item to support multiple parts, which would
enable selecting multiple flash types/vendors.

    Looking forward to the replies.  Thanks in advance.

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 11:21:11AM -0800, Grant Mills wrote:
> All,
>     I am potentially going to be adding support to eCos/RedBoot to
> support multiple flash types in the same executable.  The reason for
> this is the desire to use the cheapest flash available at any given
> time.  That potentially means bouncing between Intel, AMD/Spansion,
> ....  We currently support this in our products using custom boot
> code.  We are looking to migrate to RedBoot.  For us this is a
> requirement.
> 
>     First, I must ask this question, "Has this already been done or is
> somebody in the process of doing this?"  Second, will the
> configuration tool support something like this?  It would require the
> ability to select an item to support multiple parts, which would
> enable selecting multiple flash types/vendors.

Take a look at the flash_v2 branch in anoncvs. This gives you the
necassary infrastructure in the flash code to support multiple
devices.

The configuration tool is not affected. You need to add a new target
which has all the required flash packages. 

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

On 3/8/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 11:21:11AM -0800, Grant Mills wrote:
> > All,
> >     I am potentially going to be adding support to eCos/RedBoot to
> > support multiple flash types in the same executable.  The reason for
> > this is the desire to use the cheapest flash available at any given
> > time.  That potentially means bouncing between Intel, AMD/Spansion,
> > ....  We currently support this in our products using custom boot
> > code.  We are looking to migrate to RedBoot.  For us this is a
> > requirement.
> >
> >     First, I must ask this question, "Has this already been done or is
> > somebody in the process of doing this?"  Second, will the
> > configuration tool support something like this?  It would require the
> > ability to select an item to support multiple parts, which would
> > enable selecting multiple flash types/vendors.
>
> Take a look at the flash_v2 branch in anoncvs. This gives you the
> necassary infrastructure in the flash code to support multiple
> devices.
>
> The configuration tool is not affected. You need to add a new target
> which has all the required flash packages.
>
>        Andrew
>
> --
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>
>

Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.

Thanks.

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Grant Mills wrote:
[...]
> 
> Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
> open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.

You can always access weekly snapshots of anonCVS from
  http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/snapshots.shtml
via both ftp and http.

-- Alex

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Bart Veer]

>>>>> "Grant" == Grant Mills <gmills@ucsd.edu> writes:

    Grant> All,
    Grant>     I am potentially going to be adding support to
    Grant> eCos/RedBoot to support multiple flash types in the same
    Grant> executable. The reason for this is the desire to use the
    Grant> cheapest flash available at any given time. That
    Grant> potentially means bouncing between Intel, AMD/Spansion,
    Grant> .... We currently support this in our products using custom
    Grant> boot code. We are looking to migrate to RedBoot. For us
    Grant> this is a requirement.

    Grant>     First, I must ask this question, "Has this already been
    Grant> done or is somebody in the process of doing this?" Second,
    Grant> will the configuration tool support something like this? It
    Grant> would require the ability to select an item to support
    Grant> multiple parts, which would enable selecting multiple flash
    Grant> types/vendors.

    Grant>     Looking forward to the replies. Thanks in advance.

If you are talking about switching between parts within one family,
e.g. just AMD parts or compatibles, then this can already be achieved
with V1 flash to some extent. Look at e.g. devs/flash/powerpc/viper,
that supports three different AMD flash parts. You'll still need to
specify in advance which parts you might want to use in future.

For a more general solution you'll want the V2 branch in anoncvs. In
particular the V2 version of the AMD flash driver has an option for
CFI support, i.e. the device parameters will be determined at run-time
and you can bounce around between devices within a family all you
like. If you want to switch between families, e.g. between
AMD-compatible and Intel Strata flash, then in theory the V2 code
should allow for that as well. However that is not a common scenario.

Bart

-- 
Bart Veer                       eCos Configuration Architect
http://www.ecoscentric.com/     The eCos and RedBoot experts


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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:04:51PM +0000, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Grant Mills wrote:
> [...]
> > 
> > Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
> > open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.
> 
> You can always access weekly snapshots of anonCVS from
>   http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/snapshots.shtml
> via both ftp and http.

Unfortunetely, there are only snapshots of the trunk. He will require
the flash_v2 branch.

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

> For a more general solution you'll want the V2 branch in anoncvs. In
> particular the V2 version of the AMD flash driver has an option for
> CFI support, i.e. the device parameters will be determined at run-time
> and you can bounce around between devices within a family all you
> like. If you want to switch between families, e.g. between
> AMD-compatible and Intel Strata flash, then in theory the V2 code
> should allow for that as well. However that is not a common scenario.

Having two different families works well with the v2 code. We have a
board with either ST or Intel Strata devices.

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

On 3/8/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> > For a more general solution you'll want the V2 branch in anoncvs. In
> > particular the V2 version of the AMD flash driver has an option for
> > CFI support, i.e. the device parameters will be determined at run-time
> > and you can bounce around between devices within a family all you
> > like. If you want to switch between families, e.g. between
> > AMD-compatible and Intel Strata flash, then in theory the V2 code
> > should allow for that as well. However that is not a common scenario.
>
> Having two different families works well with the v2 code. We have a
> board with either ST or Intel Strata devices.
>
>        Andrew
>
>

Specifically, we will need to go between Intel Strata and AMD/Spansion
Mirror Bit.

I'd prefer a CFI solution as well since that provides a migration path
for larger parts without code changes.

However, look out for the Intel 1Gb and 512Mb P30 Strata Flash.  They
are multi-die devices and will require multiple chip selects for the
1Gb and multiple CFI entries for each die.  We aren't looking at
either of these chips (yet.) on the RedBoot platform, but we've used
them in others.

Thanks for all the help.

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

On 3/8/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 02:26:26PM -0800, Grant Mills wrote:
> > On 3/8/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> > > > Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
> > > > open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks.
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Grant Mills
> > > > gmills@ucsd.edu
> > >
> > > ucsd.edu..... I would expect they have a unix machine on the outside
> > > which you can build an SSH tunnel to to access CVS.
> > >
> > >        Andrew
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Yes, but I work for Motorola.  I can't even SSH out of here to my home
> > box, where I could do the same thing.  I'll probably write a script to
> > grab daily snapshots of the branch and e-mail them to my work address.
>
> No need to do daily snapshots. Nothing much happens in the branch. In
> fact it is suffering from bit rot :-(
>
> What you will probably want to do is from the v2 branch take io/flash,
> and dev/flash. Merge this with the trunk. You will also probably want
> to take a diff for of all the v2 changes in redboot and apply them to
> the trunk redboot.
>
> That should then give you an up to date eCos system but with flash v2
> features.
>
> The flash_v2 branch will get merged into the trunk when we make the
> next major release. That will happen when we assign eCos to the
> FSF. However that it taking much much longer than we expected.
>
>        Andrew
>
>

Andrew,
    So is sounds like I should be able to enter the packages directory
and execute this:
       cvs -q -z3 up -j flash_v2 io/flash devs/flash redboot
Then I'll clean up the conflicts and I should be off and running.  Right?

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Chuck McManis]

Andrew Lunn wrote:

>On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:04:51PM +0000, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>  
>
>>Grant Mills wrote:
>>[...]
>>    
>>
>>>Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
>>>open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.
>>>      
>>>
>>You can always access weekly snapshots of anonCVS from
>>  http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/snapshots.shtml
>>via both ftp and http.
>>    
>>
>
>Unfortunetely, there are only snapshots of the trunk. He will require
>the flash_v2 branch.
>
>        Andrew
>
>  
>
May I suggest you use a home broadband connection (or check into a 
internet enabled Hotel for one night) and grab a copy of the Flash V2 
branch using anoncvs. In my experience that will be easier than tryting 
to get corporate IT to change ANYTHING on the company firewall ;-)

--Chuck


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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

> Andrew,
>     So is sounds like I should be able to enter the packages directory
> and execute this:
>        cvs -q -z3 up -j flash_v2 io/flash devs/flash redboot
> Then I'll clean up the conflicts and I should be off and running.  Right?

Humm, looks O.K. 

I've never done this myself, i've never needed to mix the branch and
the trunk. So i cannot say it will actually work.

You might also want to look at the changes that have been made to the
AMD flash driver in the trunk since the branch was made. Some flash
devices have been added which might not exist in the V2 driver.

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

On 3/9/06, Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> wrote:
> > Andrew,
> >     So is sounds like I should be able to enter the packages directory
> > and execute this:
> >        cvs -q -z3 up -j flash_v2 io/flash devs/flash redboot
> > Then I'll clean up the conflicts and I should be off and running.  Right?
>
> Humm, looks O.K.
>
> I've never done this myself, i've never needed to mix the branch and
> the trunk. So i cannot say it will actually work.
>
> You might also want to look at the changes that have been made to the
> AMD flash driver in the trunk since the branch was made. Some flash
> devices have been added which might not exist in the V2 driver.
>
>        Andrew
>
>

Andrew,
    Basically the -j switch merges the specified revision (flash_v2,
but it's a branch tag so cvs takes the tips of the branch) into the
current sandbox, which for me is HEAD/tip/trunk.  So I've effectively
brought the flash_v2 changes to the tip.
    There were some conflicts, most were in the ChangeLog files. 
That's expected because cvs detected different changes in the same
space.  There were a few in the code and I'll sort through those
before I build.

All,
    Would anybody be interested in a report on the conflicts?

    Thanks again.

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

> Andrew,
>     Basically the -j switch merges the specified revision (flash_v2,
> but it's a branch tag so cvs takes the tips of the branch) into the
> current sandbox, which for me is HEAD/tip/trunk.  So I've effectively
> brought the flash_v2 changes to the tip.
>     There were some conflicts, most were in the ChangeLog files. 
> That's expected because cvs detected different changes in the same
> space.  There were a few in the code and I'll sort through those
> before I build.
> 
> All,
>     Would anybody be interested in a report on the conflicts?

When the FSF thing finally happens i would be interested in your
conflict resolved tree.

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Bart Veer]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch> writes:

    Andrew> You might also want to look at the changes that have been
    Andrew> made to the AMD flash driver in the trunk since the branch
    Andrew> was made. Some flash devices have been added which might
    Andrew> not exist in the V2 driver.

The am29xxxxxv2 driver does not use a parts database, so it does not
matter what devices have been added to the V1 driver.

Bart

-- 
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http://www.ecoscentric.com/     The eCos and RedBoot experts


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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Alex Schuilenburg]

Andrew Lunn wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:04:51PM +0000, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
>> Grant Mills wrote:
>> [...]
>>> Excellent.  Now if I could only convince the Corporate IT people to
>>> open up the firewall enough for me to access the cvs server.
>> You can always access weekly snapshots of anonCVS from
>>   http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/snapshots.shtml
>> via both ftp and http.
> 
> Unfortunetely, there are only snapshots of the trunk. He will require
> the flash_v2 branch.

Oops, I did not realise we were not generating snapshots of flash_v2.

Now added and the 1st one is waiting...

-- Alex



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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[yh]

Looks like I have to add a P30 support myself. It seems to me if we add
unlock block function call before erase block and before flash program,
the current J3 code should work for P30 as well. I am alsoAny comments
from experts out there?

Thanks.

Jim

Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> yh@bizmail.com.au wrote:
>
>>Hello Alex,
>>
>>I am looking for redboot to support Intel P3 and I took the snapshot, but
>>seems that the intel/stratav2 is empty. Where can I find the source code
>>for supporting P3?
>
>
> As Andrew said, the intel/stratav2 directory is the flash_v2 branch. My
> bad as I did not realise we were not generating snapshots of the
> flash_v2 branch (now added to the cron to generate future snapshots for
> flash_v2 until the merge).
>
> To kickstart, I have also just generated a flash_v2 snapshot but it
> looks like you may have lucked out with P3 support.
>
> -- Alex
>
>
>




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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Grant Mills]

On 3/10/06, Alex Schuilenburg <alexs@ecoscentric.com> wrote:
> yh@bizmail.com.au wrote:
> > Hello Alex,
> >
> > I am looking for redboot to support Intel P3 and I took the snapshot, but
> > seems that the intel/stratav2 is empty. Where can I find the source code
> > for supporting P3?
>
> As Andrew said, the intel/stratav2 directory is the flash_v2 branch. My
> bad as I did not realise we were not generating snapshots of the
> flash_v2 branch (now added to the cron to generate future snapshots for
> flash_v2 until the merge).
>
> To kickstart, I have also just generated a flash_v2 snapshot but it
> looks like you may have lucked out with P3 support.
>
> -- Alex
>
>
>
> --
> Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos
> and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss
>
>
There is not a lot to supporting the P30 Flash Family from Intel. 
From my perspective there are three main hurdles:

1.  The entire chip is locked at reset.  This means that the
implementation will need to check for lock before any write/erase
operation.  This may already be in place.

2.  When supporting 512Mb and greater, the flash chip itself contains
multiple dies.  Each die is a 256Mb P30.  Therefore, you'll need to
track them as independent devices (at least I would.)

3.  Lastly, the 1Gb version has two chip selects.  This is more of a
hardware issue than a firmware but worth mentioning.

As I will be looking at the flash_v2 branch here soon, I'll see if I
can get some P30 support in before my own deadlines.  If not, I'll
table it til afterwards.

--
Grant Mills
gmills@ucsd.edu

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Alex Schuilenburg]

yh@bizmail.com.au wrote:
> Hello Alex,
> 
> I am looking for redboot to support Intel P3 and I took the snapshot, but
> seems that the intel/stratav2 is empty. Where can I find the source code
> for supporting P3?

As Andrew said, the intel/stratav2 directory is the flash_v2 branch. My
bad as I did not realise we were not generating snapshots of the
flash_v2 branch (now added to the cron to generate future snapshots for
flash_v2 until the merge).

To kickstart, I have also just generated a flash_v2 snapshot but it
looks like you may have lucked out with P3 support.

-- Alex



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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[Andrew Lunn]

On Fri, Mar 10, 2006 at 03:55:47PM +1100, yh@bizmail.com.au wrote:
> Hello Alex,
> 
> I am looking for redboot to support Intel P3 and I took the snapshot, but
> seems that the intel/stratav2 is empty. Where can I find the source code
> for supporting P3?

The intel/stratav2 directory is the flash_v2 branch driver. Since the
snapshot if of the trunk, the branch directories are empty.

Having said that i don't think any version of eCos currently supports
the Intel P3 device.

        Andrew

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Re: [ECOS] Modifying RedBoot to support multiple flash devices

[yh]

Hello Alex,

I am looking for redboot to support Intel P3 and I took the snapshot, but
seems that the intel/stratav2 is empty. Where can I find the source code
for supporting P3?

Thanks.

Jim

Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Grant Mills wrote:
>
> You can always access weekly snapshots of anonCVS from
>   http://www.ecoscentric.com/devzone/snapshots.shtml
> via both ftp and http.
>
> -- Alex
>



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