TS-4500

From embeddedTS Manuals
TS-4500
ts-4500.gif
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Schematic
Mechanical Drawing
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Processor
Cavium CNS2312 250MHz
Arm®v4T/Arm922 (Arm9™-compatible)
CPU Datasheet

Overview

The TS-4500 is a TS-Socket System-on-Module (SoM) based on the Cavium CNS2132 CPU running at 250 MHz. The TS-4500 features 10/100 Ethernet, high speed USB host and device, microSD card, and 256 MB XNAND drive.

Getting Started

A Linux PC is recommended for development, and will be assumed for this documentation. For users in Windows or OSX we recommend virtualizing a Linux PC. Most of our platforms run Debian and if there is no personal distribution preference this is what we recommend for ease of use.

Virtualization

Suggested Linux Distributions

It may be possible to develop using a Windows or OSX system, but this is not supported. Development will include accessing drives formatted for Linux and often Linux based tools.

Development Kit and Accessories

The KIT-4500 includes the items that are commonly necessary for development with the TS-4500.

KIT-4500 Contents
Item Description
TS-8200 The TS-8200 is a baseboard that brings out RS232, RS485, CAN, Ethernet, USB, and provides a switching regulator that can accept 5-12V.
TS-ENC820 This enclosure measures 139.88mm (5.507 in.) W x 102.02mm (4.016 in.) D x 35.06mm (1.380 in.) H. The end-plate brings out 1x 10/100 Ethernet port, 1x USB Host port, 1 USB Device port, 2 user controlled red and green LEDs, multipurpose reset/script button, power input and COM port. The power source is either 5-12V DC through a commercial-grade barrel connector on the front of the unit or USB cable via USB Device port.
MSD-2GB-USB-7500 A Sandisk MicroSD card with a Vivitar SD reader. We recommend Sandisk SD cards as that is what we use for testing. Whenever we receive batches of SD cards from our suppliers, we will pull a few cards for testing to ensure they behave within our expectations. The Vivitar reader is also recommended because it was tested to work with the most SD cards, and it does not have a potentially damaging voltage drop that many consumer SD readers have.
CB-DB9Y The CB-DB9Y is a splitter cable used to bring out multiple uarts on the same header.
CB7-05 The CB7-05 is a 5 foot null modem cable. This is commonly used to connect to your workstation.
CB-USB-AMBM This is a USB A male to USB B male which is commonly used to connect the board to your PC as a USB device. This is also used for connecting the TS-9449 to your workstation for a USB to serial console.
CB-USB-AF5P The CB-USB-AF5P connects from a standard 5 pin 0.1" pitch header to a USB A host. This can be used to expose a single USB port while keeping the rest internal to your own enclosure.
PS-5VDC-REG-1AMP-BC This is a 5V 1A DC power supply on a center pin positive barrel connector. Optionally type I or C adapters are available and will ship with the product if ordered to a country where this specific adapter is required. If you require one of these adapters it is recommended to put this in the comments for your order.

The other options include:

Item Description
CN-TSSOCKET-M The CN-TSSOCKET-M is the male connector which can be used for custom baseboard development. 2 Connectors are needed for each custom baseboard.
WIFI-N-USB The WIFI-N-USB is an ASUS 802.11N adapter. See the WIFI-N-USB page for more details.

Get a Console

The TS-4500 console (ttyS0) is a TTL UART at 115200 baud, 8n1 (8 data bits 1 stop bit), and no flow control. On the SoM this is CN2_93 (TX), CN2_95 (RX). Various baseboards bring this out using different methods. The TS-8500 and TS-8200 baseboards bring out a DB9 connector with the console as RS232. Other baseboards have a jumper to switch between the console port and another serial port. Some baseboards require an adapter board like the TS-9449. Refer to the baseboard model you are using [Main_Page#Baseboards|here]] for more information on any specific jumpers or ports to connect to for console.

Note: If DIO_9 is held low during boot until the red LED comes on (around 5 seconds), console will be redirected to XUART 0. On most baseboards where this is applicable, DIO_9 is an exposed button.


Console from Linux

There are many serial terminal applications for Linux, three common used applications are 'picocom', 'screen', and 'minicom'. These examples demonstrate all three applications and assume that the serial device is "/dev/ttyUSB0" which is common for USB adapters. Be sure to replace the serial device string with that of the device on your workstation.

'picocom' is a very small and simple client.

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

For Rev C hardware or newer.

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyACM0


'screen' is a terminal multiplexer which happens to have serial support.

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

For Rev C hardware or newer.

screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200


Or a very commonly used client is 'minicom' which is quite powerful but requires some setup:

minicom -s
  • Navigate to 'serial port setup'
  • Type "a" and change location of serial device to '/dev/ttyUSB0' then hit "enter"
  • If needed, modify the settings to match this and hit "esc" when done:
     E - Bps/Par/Bits          : 115200 8N1
     F - Hardware Flow Control : No
     G - Software Flow Control : No
  • Navigate to 'Save setup as dfl', hit "enter", and then "esc"


Console from Windows

Putty is a small simple client available for download here. Open up Device Manager to determine your console port. See the putty configuration image for more details.

On boards using the Silabs CP210x driver:

Device Manager Putty Configuration

On boards using the Renesas USB CDC-ACM driver:

Device Manager 2 Putty Configuration 2

Booting up the board

WARNING: Be sure to take appropriate Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) precautions. Disconnect the power source before moving, cabling, or performing any set up procedures. Inappropriate handling may cause damage to the board.

If you are using one of our off the shelf baseboards you will need to refer to that baseboard's manual [Main_Page#Baseboards|here]]. Different baseboards use different power connectors, voltage ranges, and may have different power requirements.

The TS-4500 System-on-Module only requires a 5V rail from the baseboard which may be regulated from other voltage ranges. Refer to the #TS-Socket Connector section for the POWER pins. While operating the board will typically idle at around 400mA@5V, but this can very slightly based on your application. For example, every USB device can consume up to 500mA@5V. The ethernet interface can draw around 50mA while the interface is up. Every DIO pin can source up to 12mA from the FPGA. A Sandisk SD card can draw 65mA@3.3V during a write. A typical power supply for just the TS-4500 will allow around 1A, but a larger power supply may be needed depending on your peripherals.

Once you have applied power to your baseboard you should look for console output. The first output is from the bootrom:

  >> TS-BOOTROM - built Oct 12 2011 13:35:38
  >> Copyright (c) 2009, Technologic Systems
  >> Booting from SD card...
  .
  .
  .

The "Booting From" message will indicate your boot media. The 3 dots after indicate steps of the booting procedure. The first dot means the MBR was copied into memory and executed. The next two dots indicate that the MBR executed and the kernel and initrd were found and copied to memory.

When you first apply power to the board, the logic values on the MODE1 and MODE2 pins are latched. These signals decide if you boot from the MicroSD, XNAND, or offboard flash. If you are using one of our baseboards this is usually controlled by an "SD Boot" jumper which will boot to SD when it is on, and XNAND if it is not. Keep in mind this only includes the initial boot of the kernel and initrd, but once the initrd is booted you can load the Debian partition from the XNAND, SD, USB drive, or an NFS root regardless of your initially booted media. Most common cases will boot from only one media.

The MODE1 and MODE2 signals both have pull-ups. For a logic 0 these should be pulled to ground with a 1k ohm resistor.

Boot Modes
Booot Device MODE1 MODE2
XNAND 1 1
SD Card 1 0
Offboard Flash 0 1
Offboard Flash 0 0

The offboard flash is only available on certain baseboards.

Initrd / Busybox

After the board is first booted you will be at this shell:

  >> TS-BOOTROM - built Oct 12 2011 13:35:38
  >> Copyright (c) 2009, Technologic Systems
  >> Booting from SD card...
  .
  .
  .
  >> Booted from: SD card                 Booted in: 3.93 seconds
  >> SBC Model number: TS-XXXX            SBC Sub-model number: 0
  >> CPU clock rate: 250MHz               RAM size: 64MB
  >> NAND Flash size: 256MB               NAND Flash Type: 0xdcec (Samsung)
  >> MAC number: 00:D0:69:4F:6F:04        SBC FPGA Version: 7
  >> Temperature Sensor: 37.500 degC      MODE1 bootstrap: ON
  >> RTC present: YES                     Date and Time: Jan  1 1970 00:00:03
  >> MODE2 bootstrap: OFF                 SD card size: 1886MB
  >> Offboard SPI flash type: Micron      Offboard SPI flash size: 8MB
  >> XUARTs detected: 3                   CAN present: NO
  >> Linux kernel version: 2.6.24.4       Linux kernel date: Jun 8 2011
  >> Bootrom date: Oct 12 2011            INITRD date: Dec 27 2011
  >> ts7500ctl date: Jun  8 2011          sdctl date: Jun  8 2011
  >> canctl date: Jun  8 2011             nandctl date: Aug 15 2011
  >> spiflashctl date: Aug 15 2011        xuartctl date: Aug 15 2011
  >> dioctl date: Feb 10 2011             spictl date: Jan 24 2011
  >> dmxctl date: Jun  8 2011             busybox date: Jun 30 2010 (v1.14.2)
  >> ts7500.subr date: Jun 10 2011        daqctl date: Aug 15 2011
  >> linuxrc date: Aug 31 2011            rootfs date: Jan  1 1970
  >> MBR date: Jul 14 2009
  
  Type 'tshelp' for help
  # 
Note: Your version dates may be different depending on ship date and the image used. On newer units, "Offboard SPI" and "Onboard SPI" flashes may show "unknown" for the type. This is purely cosmetic and is no cause for concern. The SPI flash can be queried with the 'spiflashctl' tool which will return a proper manufacturer and device ID.

This is a busybox shell which presents you with a very minimalistic system. While this has access to many Debian applications, it is important to note that this is not Debian. This environment will allow very fast boot times closer to 2-4 seconds, while Debian takes closer to 30-45 seconds but provides an init system and a more standard environment. As described in the previous section, the kernel and initrd are copied into RAM so any changes to this filesystem are temporary. You can commit changes using the "save" command.

For most development you will want to boot to the Debian filesystem which can be reached by typing "exit" through the serial console, or by relinking the linuxrc script to make the board automatically boot to Debian:

rm linuxrc; ln -s /linuxrc-sdroot /linuxrc; save

The linuxrc-sdroot script will actually mount and boot to the Debian filesystem on the SD or XNAND depending which device you used to boot. You can boot to a different Debian partition by using one of the other linuxrc scripts:

Script Function
linuxrc-fastboot (default) Boots immediately to a shell in ramdisk. This will mount whichever boot medium you have selected to /mnt/root/. When you type 'exit', it will boot to that medium.
linuxrc-nandmount Same as the linuxrc-fastboot script, but will mount and boot the debian partition from NAND.
linuxrc-sdmount Same as the linuxrc-fastboot script, but will mount and boot the debian partition from SD.
linuxrc-sdroot Boots immediately to the Debian stored on either SD or NAND depending on which media the SBC was booted from.
linuxrc-sdroot-readonly Same as linuxrc-sdroot, except it will mount the Debian partition read only while creating a unionfs with a ramdisk. Changes will only happen in memory and not on disk.
linuxrc-usbroot Mounts the first partition of the first detected USB mass storage device and boots there.

Once you have booted to Debian you can force the boot process to stop in the fastboot shell/initd on next bootup with:

touch /fastboot

The small default initrd is only 2Mbyte but there is space for approximately 800 Kbyte of additional user applications. This constraint is important if you are running your application without Debian, but only from the initrd. If you have the Debian partition available you can access that partition under /mnt/root/ to run your application.

The compiled instance of busybox includes several internal commands listed below:

   # /bin/busybox --help
   BusyBox v1.14.2 (2009-08-07 14:43:48 MST) multi-call binary
   Copyright (C) 1998-2008 Erik Andersen, Rob Landley, Denys Vlasenko
   and others. Licensed under GPLv2.
   See source distribution for full notice.
   
   Usage: busybox [function] [arguments]...
      or: function [arguments]...
   
           BusyBox is a multi-call binary that combines many common Unix
           utilities into a single executable.  Most people will create a
           link to busybox for each function they wish to use and BusyBox
           will act like whatever it was invoked as!
   
   Currently defined functions:
           [, [[, ash, basename, cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, chroot, cmp, cp,
           cpio, cttyhack, cut, date, dd, depmod, devmem, df, dirname, dmesg,
           du, echo, egrep, env, expr, false, fdisk, fgrep, find, grep, gunzip,
           gzip, halt, head, hostname, hush, ifconfig, insmod, kill, killall,
           ln, login, ls, lsmod, md5sum, mdev, mkdir, mknod, modprobe, more,
           mount, msh, mv, netstat, ping, pivot_root, poweroff, printf, ps,
           pwd, reboot, rm, rmdir, rmmod, route, rx, sed, setconsole, setsid,
           sh, sleep, stty, sync, tail, tar, telnetd, test, tftp, top, tr,
           true, udhcpc, umount, unzip, usleep, uudecode, uuencode, vi, wget,
           xargs, yes, zcat

Also on the initrd are the TS specific applications: sdctl, spiflashctl, nandctl, daqctl, ts7500ctl, canctl, and xuartctl. We also provide the ts7500.subr which provides the following functions:

 cvtime()
 usbload()
 sdsave()
 spiflashsave()
 save()
 sd2spiflash()
 spiflash2sd()
 setdiopin()
 getdiopin()
 setrelay()
 setout()
 getin()
 tshelp()
 gettemp()

To use these functions you must source the subr file:

. /ts7500.subr
## or from Debian 
# . /initrd/ts7500.subr
tshelp

System Configuration

For development it is recommended to go boot to the full Debian where there is plenty of space for development work. Debian provides many more packages and a much more familiar environment for users already versed in Debian. Once here you can use apt-get to install/remove packages, configure the network, and perform other common tasks.

Configuring the Network

From almost any Linux system you can use "ip" or the ifconfig/route commands to initially set up the network. To configure the network interface manually you can use the same set of commands in the initrd or Debian.

# Bring up the CPU network interface
ifconfig eth0 up

# Or if you're on a baseboard with a second ethernet port, you can use that as:
ifconfig eth1 up

# Set an ip address (assumes 255.255.255.0 subnet mask)
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.50

# Set a specific subnet
ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.50 netmask 255.255.0.0

# Configure your route.  This is the server that provides your internet connection.
route add default gw 192.168.0.1

# Edit /etc/resolv.conf for your DNS server
echo "nameserver 192.168.0.1" > /etc/resolv.conf

Most commonly networks will offer DHCP which can be set up with one command:

Configure DHCP in Debian:

# To setup the default CPU ethernet port
pump -i eth0
# Or if you're on a baseboard with a second ethernet port, you can use that as:
pump -i eth1

Configure DHCP in the initrd:

udhcpc -i eth0
# Or if you're on a baseboard with a second ethernet port, you can use that as:
udhcpc -i eth1

To make your network settings take effect on startup in Debian, edit /etc/network/interfaces:

 # Used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8). See the interfaces(5) manpage or 
 # /usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples for more information.          
                                                                   
 # We always want the loopback interface.                          
 #                                                                 
 auto lo                                                           
 iface lo inet loopback                                            
                                                                   
 auto eth0                                                         
 iface eth0 inet static                                            
   address 192.168.0.50                                            
   netmask 255.255.255.0                                           
   gateway 192.168.0.1                                             
 auto eth1                                                         
 iface eth1 inet dhcp

In this example eth0 is a static configuration and eth1 receives its configuration from the DHCP server. For more information on network configuration in Debian see their documentation here.

To make your changes permanent in the initrd you will need to edit the linuxrc script. Use the same commands you would use to manually configure it and place them over the current ifconfig calls.

Installing New Software

Debian provides the apt-get system which lets you manage prebuilt applications. Before you do this you need to update Debian's list of package versions and locations. This assumes you have a valid network connection to the internet.

Debian Lenny has been moved to archive so you will need to update /etc/apt/sources.list to contain these two lines:

 deb http://archive.debian.org/debian lenny main
 deb-src http://archive.debian.org/debian lenny main

Now you can update the local cache of packages:

apt-get update

For example, if you wanted to install picocom you could use the apt-cache command to search the local cache of Debian's packages.

 root@ts7500:~# apt-cache search picocom
 picocom - minimal dumb-terminal emulation program
            

You can often find the names of packages from Debian's wiki or from just searching on google as well.

Once you have the package name you can use apt-get to install the package and any dependencies. This assumes you have a network connection to the internet.

apt-get install picocom
# You can also chain packages to be installed
apt-get install picocom nano vim

For more information on using apt-get refer to Debian's documentation here.

Setting up SSH

On our boards we include the Debian package for openssh-server, but we remove the automatically generated keys for security reasons. To regenerate these keys:

dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server

Make sure your board is configured properly on the network, and set a password for your remote user. SSH will not allow remote connections without a password or a shared key.

passwd root

You should now be able to connect from a remote Linux or OSX system using "ssh" or from Windows using a client such as putty.

802.11 Wireless Network

This board optionally supports 802.11 through the #WIFI-N-USB module which will create the interface ra0 using the rt3070sta module. You can load this by running:

modprobe rt3070sta-7500

Scan for a network

ifconfig ra0 up

# Scan for available networks
iwlist ra0 scan

In this case I'm connecting to "default" which is an open network:

          Cell 03 - Address: c0:ff:ee:c0:ff:ee
                    Mode:Managed
                    ESSID:"default"
                    Channel:2
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:9 Mb/s

To connect to this open network:

iwconfig ra0 essid "default"

You can use the iwconfig command to determine if you have authenticated to an access point. Before connecting it will show something similar to this:

# iwconfig ra0
rausb0    RT73 WLAN  ESSID:off/any  Nickname:""
          Mode:Auto  Frequency=2.412 GHz  Bit Rate:54 Mb/s   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=0/100  Signal level:-121 dBm  Noise level:-115 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

If you are connecting using WEP, you will need to define a network key:

iwconfig ra0 essid "default" key "yourpassword"

If you are connecting to WPA, you will need to use wpa_passphrase and wpa_supplicant:

wpa_passphrase the_essid the_password > /etc/wpa_supplicant_custom.conf

You will need to edit the /etc/wpa_supplicant_custom.conf file so the network block contains "proto=RSN". For example:

  network={
        ssid="default"                     
        proto=RSN
        #psk="yourpassword"
        psk=your-key-encoded                                                
  }

The default image contains a patched wpa_supplicant for an older device, but for the WIFI-N-USB you will need to remove this and use the version from Debian:

mv /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant /usr/local/bin/wpa_supplicant.old
apt-get update && apt-get install wpasupplicant #This assumes a proper internet connection is established
 
# reset the shell to find the new wpa_supplicant
exec bash
 
# Verify that it is the correct version (0.6.4):
wpa_supplicant -v

Now that you have the configuration file, you will need to start the wpa_supplicant daemon:

wpa_supplicant -irausb0 -Dralink -c/etc/wpa_supplicant_custom.conf -B

When you have successfully connected, it will list an "Access Point" bssid, and a "Link Quality" of greater than 0/100.

# iwconfig rausb0
rausb0    RT73 WLAN  ESSID:"default"  Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency=2.417 GHz  Access Point: c0:ff:ee:c0:ff:ee  
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   
          RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality=63/100  Signal level:-70 dBm  Noise level:-99 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

Now you are connected to the network, but this would be close to the equivilant of connecing a network cable. To connect to the internet or talk to your internal network you will need to configure the interface. See the #Configuring the Network for more information.

Starting Automatically

From Debian the most straightforward way to add your application to startup is to create a startup script. This is an example simple startup script that will toggle the red led on during startup, and off during shutdown. In this case I'll name the file customstartup, but you can replace this with your application name as well.

Edit the file /etc/init.d/customstartup to contain this:

 #! /bin/sh
 # /etc/init.d/customstartup
 
 case "$1" in
   start)
     /usr/local/bin/ts7500ctl --redledon
     ## If you are launching a daemon or other long running processes
     ## this should be started with
     # nohup /usr/local/bin/yourdaemon &
     ;;
   stop)
     /usr/local/bin/ts7500ctl --redledoff
     ;;
   *)
     echo "Usage: customstartup start|stop" >&2
     exit 3
     ;;
 esac
 
 exit 0
Note: The $PATH variable is not set up by default in init scripts so this will either need to be done manually or the full path to your application must be included.

To make this run during startup and shutdown:

update-rc.d customstartup defaults

To manually start and stop the script:

/etc/init.d/customstartup start
/etc/init.d/customstartup stop

To make your application startup from the initrd you only need to add the required lines (no need for the Debian init syntax) to the linuxrc script. Usually the best place to add in your application is right after /mnt/root/ is mounted so the Debian libraries and applications are available.

Backup / Restore

If you are using a Windows workstation there is no support for writing directly to block devices. However, as long as one of your booting methods still can boot a kernel and the initrd you can rewrite everything by using a usb drive. This is also a good way to blast many stock boards when moving your product into production. You can find more information about this method with an example script here.

MicroSD Card

MicroSD.png Click to download the latest 2GB SD card image.

Once downloaded you can decompress the image using bzip2:

bzip2 -d 2gbsd-noeclipse-latest.dd.bz2

The resulting file will be "2gbsd-noeclipse-latest.dd".

For imaging the SD card we recommend using a Linux or similar operating system that allows you to access a block device using dd. We do not support rewriting the SD card from Windows.

If you are reprogramming the SD card from your workstation you will also need to determine the SD card device. Once you have connected the SD card to your workstation you can usually find the correct block device in the output of "dmesg". For example:

 [  309.498834] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 3862528 512-byte logical blocks: (1.97 GB/1.84 GiB)
 [  309.519814] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
 [  309.519818] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
 [  309.519819] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 [  309.536025] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 [  309.536029]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb3
 [  309.559672] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
 [  309.559676] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk

On this system my SD card block device is /dev/sdb, but your system will likely be different. The block devices are allocated in order by the letter so the next USB drive connected would be /dev/sdc. On some newer kernels you will see '/dev/mmcblk0' as the block device and '/dev/mmcblk0p1' for the first partition. For these examples I will use the '/dev/mmcblk0' format.

WARNING: Many distributions will name your hard drive something like /dev/sda or /dev/hda which will have the same naming scheme as an SD card or a USB drive. Make sure you are aware which device is which before writing the disk. Technologic Systems is not responsible for any data lost/destroyed because of improper command execution.


WARNING: If you are working with the SD card from your workstation, keep in mind that most Linux distributions will mount the partitions that they can as soon as the drive is inserted. This is desirable if you want to open the filesystem, but for dealing directly with the block device for performing backups or restoring an image this is dangerous to your data.

To verify if your workstation has mounted the block device on insertion:

cat /proc/mounts
# look for your SD card block device to see if this is already mounted.

If the block device did automatically mount, you will need to refer to your distribution's documentation for disabling automounting. For example, this is Ubuntu's documentation on disabling automounting. If you are not using a graphical Linux system this should not be a concern, but make sure no filesystems are mounted read only or read write while writing or reading an image.

For backing up or restoring any images from the board you will need to make sure you do not have any partitions mounted. On the default configuration you can write an image from the initrd after unmounting /mnt/root:

umount /mnt/root/

Restore from Workstation

To write the latest image or restore to stock you would use the dd command. This will perform a byte for byte copy from our image. This contains the MBR boot code with the partition tables, the kernel, initrd, and Debian filesystem. No other formatting or partitioning is needed.

Write an image to the entire SD card:

dd if=/path/to/backup.dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4M conv=fsync

If you want to write a new kernel, but not an entire image you can rewrite the second partition:

dd if=/path/to/zImage bs=4M of=/dev/mmcblk0p2 conv=fsync

Backup from Workstation

To backup an entire SD card image:

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/path/to/backup.dd bs=4M

This will create a dd file the size of the card.

Note: A MicroSD card from one manufacturer will likely not be the exact same size as another manufacturer's MicroSD card of the same size. Our partition layouts by default leave the last 10% of the images unallocated to account for the size difference of various manufacturers MicroSD cards. As long as you use our partition layout you should not need to be concerned with this, but if you create your own layout we strongly recommend leaving 10% of the disk unallocated.

Once you have the disk image you will want to trim this to the last partition so the image doesn't contain the free space at the end of the disk. To get the last sector you would use fdisk:

 fdisk -ucl /dev/sdb
 
 Disk /dev/sdb: 1977 MB, 1977614336 bytes
 61 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 3862528 sectors
 Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 Disk identifier: 0x00000000
 
    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1             512        8703        4096   83  Linux
 /dev/sdb2            8704       15871        3584   da  Non-FS data
 /dev/sdb3           16896       20991        2048   da  Non-FS data
 /dev/sdb4           25088     3170815     1572864   83  Linux

On this SD card the end of the partition is 3170815 sectors. As the sectors each contain 512B the image is 1623457280 bytes. You can use the truncate command to correct the image size:

# This is an example - check your image with fdisk
truncate backup.dd --size=1623457280

Keep in mind these numbers are an example and are not necessarily representative of your image.

If you would like to backup just the Kernel partition, you would grab partition 2.

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=/path/to/zImage bs=32k

Restore From the SBC

To write the latest image or restore to stock you would use the dd command. This will perform a byte for byte copy from our image. This contains the MBR boot code with the partition tables, the kernel, initrd, and Debian filesystem. No other formatting or partitioning is needed.

Write an image to the entire SD card:

dd if=/path/to/image-latest.dd of=/dev/nbd9 conv=fsync

Kernel

dd if=/mnt/root/zImage of=/dev/nbd7 conv=fsync

Backup From the SBC

To backup an entire SD card image:

# Determine the block size
eval $(sdctl)
dd if=/dev/nbd5 of=/path/to/backup.dd bs=512 count=$cardsize_sectors conv=sync && sync

This will create an image file the size of the card.

Note: A MicroSD card from one manufacturer will likely not be the exact same size as another manufacturer's MicroSD card of the same size. Our partition layouts by default leave the last 10% of the images unallocated to account for the size difference of various manufacturers MicroSD cards. As long as you use our partition layout you should not need to be concerned with this, but if you create your own layout we strongly recommend leaving 10% of the disk unallocated.

Once you have the disk image you will want to trim this to the last partition so the image doesn't contain the free space at the end of the disk. To get the last sector you would use fdisk:

 fdisk -ucl /dev/sdb
 
 Disk /dev/sdb: 1977 MB, 1977614336 bytes
 61 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders, total 3862528 sectors
 Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 Disk identifier: 0x00000000
 
    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1             512        8703        4096   83  Linux
 /dev/sdb2            8704       15871        3584   da  Non-FS data
 /dev/sdb3           16896       20991        2048   da  Non-FS data
 /dev/sdb4           25088     3170815     1572864   83  Linux

On this SD card the end of the partition is 3170815 sectors. As the sectors each contain 512B the image is 1623457280 bytes. You can use the truncate command to correct the image size:

# This is an example - check your image with fdisk
# truncate is a Debian command and will not be available from busybox
truncate backup.dd --size=1623457280

Keep in mind these numbers are an example and are not necessarily representative of your image.

If you would like to backup just the kernel partition, you would grab partition 2.

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=/path/to/zImage bs=32k

XNAND

This needs to be done directly on the SBC. If you are running from the SD card the XNAND will not be mounted by default. You can also boot to the initrd of the XNAND and unmount the xnand:

umount /mnt/root

If there is no /mnt/root/ directory then the system is still booted to Debian and you should not proceed with the backup/restore sections. The image that is written or read back will be corrupt.

WARNING: Rewriting the XNAND from a Debian filesystem on the XNAND will result in a corrupted image.

You can find the latest xnand image here. Once downloaded you can decompress the image using bzip2:

bzip2 -d xnandimg-latest.dd.bz2

The resulting file will be "xnandimg-latest.dd".

Backup

To create the image first connect a USB drive and then power the device on. Boot to the busybox environment and not the full Debian. The USB drive should be formatted with ext2/3 or fat32.

killall nandctl
mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb
nandctl -XR 2048 -z 131072 > /mnt/usb/backup.dd
umount /mnt/usb
sync

To backup the entire image containing the MBR/Kernel/Initrd/Debian you can run one command:

nandctl -XR 2048 -z 131072 > /path/to/backup.dd

To backup the current kernel:

nandctl -XR 4096 -z 512 --seek part1 > /path/to/kernel

To backup the initrd:

nandctl -XR 4096 -z 512 --seek part2 > /path/to/initrd

Restore

To write the image first connect a USB drive with the image and then power the device on. Boot to the busybox environment and not the full Debian. The USB drive should be formatted with ext2/3 or fat32.

killall nandctl
mkdir /mnt/usb
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb
nandctl -XW 2048 -z 131072 -i /mnt/usb/backup-image.dd
umount /mnt/usb
sync

To write the entire image containing the MBR/Kernel/Initrd/Debian you can run one command:

nandctl -XW 2048 -z 131072 -i /path/to/xnandimg-latest.dd

To write a new kernel:

dd if=zImage bs=512 conv=sync | nandctl -X -W 4095 -k kernel -z 512 -i -

To write a new initrd:

dd if=initrd bs=512 conv=sync | nandctl -X -W 4095 -k initrd -z 512 -i -

Offboard SPI Flash

This needs to be done directly on the SBC. You can find the latest SPI image here. Once downloaded you can decompress the image using bzip2:

bzip2 -d 4mb-spiflash-latest.dd.bz2

Some of this series contains a 4MB SPIflash embedded on the board that can be written to by specifying lun 0, or "-l 0" which will use that chip select. The offboard flash found on various baseboards, or console boards like the TS-9448 or TS-9449 can be written to using lun 1, or "-l 1".

Backup

Backup the entire SPI flash containing the MBR, Kernel, and initrd

spiflashctl -l 1 -R 64 -z 65536 > spiflash.dd

Backup only the Kernel

spiflashctl -l 1 -R 4095 -z 512 -k part1 > /temp/zImage

Backup only the Initrd

spiflashctl -l 1 -R 32 -z 65536 -k part2 > /temp/initrd

Restore

Write the entire SPI flash containing the MBR, Kernel, and initrd

spiflashctl -l 1 -W 64 -z 65536 -i /path/to/4mb-spiflash-latest.dd

Write a new Kernel

spiflashctl -l 1 -W 4095 -z 512 -k part1 -i /temp/zImage

Write a new Initrd

spiflashctl -l 1 -W 32 -z 65536 -k part2 -i /temp/initrd

Fastboot Recovery Commands

Since the Aug 5 2010 release, scripts have been added to the bash subroutine to ease in saving, recovering, and moving around images from one flash device to another. Below is a brief list of the commands that are provided as well as what they do. See the file /ts7500.subr (or /initrd/ts7500.subr from full Debian) for more information on the commands and what they do.

 save - Copy current initrd ramdisk to the media that the SBC is booted from
 sdsave - Copy current initrd ramdisk to mSD card
 sd2nand - Copy mSD kernel and initrd to NAND
 sd2flash - Copy mSD kernel and initrd to on-board SPI flash
 sd2flash1 - Copy mSD kernel and initrd to off-board SPI flash
 flash2sd - Copy booted SPI flash kernel and initrd to mSD card
 flashsave - Copy current initrd ramdisk to on-board flash (TS-7500 only)
 flash1save - Copy current initrd ramdisk to off-board flash (TS-752 or TS-9448)
 flash2flash - Copy booted SPI flash kernel and initrd to opposing SPI flash device (on-board to off-board and vice versa)
 flashallsave - Copy current initrd ramdisk to all SPI flash (on-board and off-board)
 nand2sd - Copy NAND flash kernel and initrd to mSD card
 nandsave - Copy current initrd ramdisk to NAND
 nand2flash - Copy NAND flash kernel and initrd to off-board flash
 flash2nand - Copy booted SPI flash kernel and initrd to NAND
 recover - Attempt to copy booted kernel and initrd to all other available flash devices

Software Development

Most of our examples are going to be in C, but Debian will include support for many more programming languages. Including (but not limited to) C++, PERL, PHP, SH, Java, BASIC, TCL, and Python. Most of the functionality from our software examples can be done from using system calls to run our userspace utilities. For higher performance, you will need to either use C/C++ or find functionally equivalent ways to perform the same actions as our examples.

The most common method of development is directly on the SBC. Since debian has space available on the SD card, we include the gnu compiler collection package which comes with everything you need to do C/C++ development on the board. To get started, this is how you could build a hello world application:

nano hello.c

This will open a blank file with nano which is a very simplistic editor. Enter in your hello world code:

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
     printf("Hello World!\n");
     return 0;
}

To save this in the editor, press "ctrl+x", type "y" to save and press enter to leave the editor. You you can use the gcc tools to compile this:

gcc hello.c -o hello

./hello

This should return your "Hello World!" text. There are far more tools you can learn to aid in your development as well:


Editors

Vim is a very common editor to use in Linux. While it isn't the most intuitive at a first glance, you can run 'vimtutor' to get a ~30 minute instruction on how to use this editor. Once you get past the initial learning curve it can make you very productive. You can find the vim documentation here.

Emacs is another very common editor. Similar to vim, it is difficult to learn but rewarding in productivity. You can find documentation on emacs here.

Nano while not as commonly used for development is the easiest. It doesn't have as many features to assist in code development, but is much simpler to begin using right away. If you've used 'edit' on Windows/DOS, this will be very familiar. You can find nano documentation here.

Compilers

We only recommend the gnu compiler collection. There are many other commercial compilers which can also be used, but will not be supported by us. You can install gcc on most boards in Debian by simply running 'apt-get update && apt-get install build-essential'. This will include everything needed for standard development in c/c++.

You can find the gcc documentation here. You can find a simple hello world tutorial for c++ with gcc here.

Build tools

When developing your application typing out the compiler commands with all of your arguments would take forever. The most common way to handle these build systems is using a make file. This lets you define your project sources, libraries, linking, and desired targets. You can read more about makefiles here.

If you are building an application intended to be more portable than on this one system, you can also look into the automake tools which are intended to help make that easier. You can find an introduction to the autotools here.

Cmake is another alternative which generates a makefile. This is generally simpler than using automake, but is not as mature as the automake tools. You can find a tutorial here.

Debuggers

Linux has a few tools which are very helpful for debugging code. The first of which is gdb (part of the gnu compiler collection). This lets you run your code with breakpoints, get backgraces, step forward or backward, and pick apart memory while your application executes. You can find documentation on gdb here.

Strace will allow you to watch how your application interacts with the running kernel which can be useful for diagnostics. You can find the manual page here.

Ltrace will do the same thing with any generic library. You can find the manual page here.

Cross Compiling

While the onboard tools are recommended for development, some applications can reach a size where the compile time is not feasible. An example of this is the Linux Kernel which will take 5-10 minutes to compile on a typical X86 workstation, but it can take 7-15 hours to compile on the SBC depending on several factors. A hello world application in comparison will take only a couple seconds on the board.

Cross compiling has a complication in that the onboard libraries do not exactly match the cross compiler environment. Debian has around 15,000 to 20,000 packages available in the apt repositories, and there is no way to feasibly build a cross compiler to account for all of these libraries. If you are cross compiling you will need to have your application entirely self contained and linking to any third party libraries in your build system.

There are two toolchains that can be used depending on your application. Most applications should use this toolchain which compiles applications to use Debian's glibc 2.7 libraries. You can compile using this toolchain by calling the version of gcc in the archive:

 usr/local/opt/crosstool/arm-linux/gcc-3.3.4-glibc-2.3.2/bin/arm-linux-gcc

The second toolchain is using the uClibc compiler here. uClibc has some limitations in order to reduce the binary size, but will also work for many simple C applications. All of our included ctl applications are built using this toolchain. Using this compiler also allows you to compile binaries that do not rely on the Debian filesystem. While this does have a g++ compiler, we do not include any c++ support in the initrd. You can compile with this toolchain by calling this version of gcc in the archive:

 arm-uclibc-3.4.6/bin/arm-linux-uclibc-gcc
Note: We do not support third party cross compilers.
Note: The provided cross compilers are only for C development.

Compile the Kernel

The TS kernel is built from the same Linux sources Cavium Networks has tested and used on their CPU evaluation boards. There are no Technologic Systems specific drivers or kernel support implemented. Instead, there has been userspace driver support implemented for the SPI NOR flash, MicroSD cards, XNAND drive, battery-backed real-time clock, XUART serial port channels, watchdog, and GPIO pins. This allows easy migration to newer kernels when either Cavium or the mainline Linux kernel community creates them. In the past, constant Linux-internal API redesign required rewriting and revisiting custom drivers with each new kernel revision, in effect locking customers in to whatever kernel version was released and tested during initial product release. Being free to update to newer kernels in the future allows easier support of the new USB devices as those drivers tend to only be developed for the newest kernel sources.

We provide Linux 2.6.24 as the supported kernel.

WARNING: Backup any important data on the board before replacing the kernel.

For adding new support to the kernel, or recompiling with more specific options you will need to have an X86 compatible linux host available that can handle the cross compiling. Compiling the kernel on the board is not supported or recommended. Before building the kernel you will need to install a few support libraries on your workstation:

Prerequisites

RHEL/Fedora/CentOS:

yum install ncurses-devel ncurses
yum groupinstall "Development Tools" "Development Libraries"

Ubuntu/Debian:

apt-get install build-essential libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev

For other distributions, please refer to their documentation to find equivalent tools.

Set up the Sources and Toolchain

# Download the cross compile toolchain (OABI)from Technologic Systems:
wget ftp://ftp.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7500-linux/cross-toolchains/crosstool-linux-arm-uclibc-3.4.6.tar.gz

#Extract to current working directory:
tar xvf crosstool-linux-arm-uclibc-3.4.6.tar.gz

#Download the Cavium Sources
wget ftp://ftp.embeddedTS.com/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7500-linux/sources/linux-2.6.24-ts-src-aug102009.tar.gz

#Extract the Kernel Sources
gzip -dc linux-2.6.24-ts-src-aug102009.tar.gz | tar xf -

cd linux-2.6.24-cavium/

export ARCH=arm
export CROSS_COMPILE=../arm-uclibc-3.4.6/bin/arm-linux-

# This sets up the default configuration for the Cavium CPU
make ts7500_defconfig
Note: If you get the message "Make: *** mixed implicit and normal rules. Stop." Then you may need to downgrade your version of make.
make menuconfig

This will bring up a graphical menu where you can edit the configuration to include support for new devices. For Example, to include CIFS support, use the arrow and Enter keys to navigate to Filesystems -> Network File Systems -> CIFS Support. Press "y" to include CIFS support into the kernel (alternatively, you could modularize the feature with "m" so you can enable or disable the module on demand which will also enable you to simply copy/paste the cifs.ko into the correct path in the kernel instead of copying the entire kernel (outlined below in appendix)). Keep hitting "exit" until you're prompted to save changes, choose "yes".

Once you have it configured, start building. This usually takes a few minutes.

make && make modules

The new kernel will be at "arch/arm/boot" in a compressed format called "zImage". The uncompressed version is simply called "Image". With the default partitioning scheme it is REQUIRED that the kernel be < 2096640 bytes in size. If you need to shorten the size, try including your changes to the kernel as modules instead. Otherwise you will need to resize the kernel partition to account for the size difference.

Now that you have a kernel you can install it as you would our stock. See the #Backup / Restore section for examples on writing this to disk.

Now we need to install the modules.

mkdir newmodules
INSTALL_MOD_PATH=newmodules make modules_install

#Replace /dev/sdb with your sd card
mkdir /mnt/miniSD4
mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt/miniSD4/

#Remove existing modules:
rm -r /mnt/miniSD4/lib/modules/*
cp -r newmodules/* /mnt/miniSD4/

umount /mnt/miniSD4

After you install the new modules, you will need to boot the kernel and run "depmod -a" to rebuild the dependency map. You can them use modprobe to load the individual modules.

You can also copy individual modules to your existing kernel assuming the kernel is the exact same version as the installed one.

If you require functionality from a newer kernel, we also provide sources for the 2.6.36 kernel patched with support as-is. You can find the sources here. You will need to also use this toolchain. The rest of the steps for building the kernel are the same. This kernel should function the same as the other, however the USB device driver is not implemented. We strongly suggest using the 2.6.24 kernel unless you have a requirement for a later kernel as the 2.6.24 is supported and has gone through much more testing through various productions.

We also now have a copy of a 3.4.0 kernel source here. These same instructions are applicable but you will need to use this toolchain instead of the one used with 2.6.24.

Getting Started with tsctl

First, download and install the latest version of tsctl as documented in the Getting Started Guide.

In the examples below you can follow along by typing the commands (the portion after the prompt) and expect to see the output below the prompt. Note that while the results should be similar, in some cases you might not see exactly the same results due to variations in execution.

Let's start the tsctl shell:

$ tsctl
tsctl 0.93-ts (Dec  7 2012 16:13:33)
Type "?" to get context-sensitive help.
tsctl>

Let's check that we really have a TS-4500.

tsctl> System ModelId
17664
tsctl>

That doesn't look like 4500! The reason is that the ModelId (and BaseBoardId) commands return 0x4500 (hexadecimal 4500), but the tsctl shell defaults to decimal output. (Note that the command line defaults to hexadecimal!)

We can change to hexadecimal output using the mode command. There is no output from this command.

tsctl> Mode Hex
tsctl>

Now let's try again.

tsctl> System ModelId
0x00004500
tsctl>

In addition to the base the output is represented in, you can also change the general format. The tsctl shell defaults to "NoAssign" mode in which only the input or inputs are printed, each on a separate line. The "Assign" mode (which is the default for the command line) prints a descriptive name=value pair for each value output.

tsctl> Mode Assign
tsctl>

Now let's re-run the previous command. If your version of tsctl is linked against libreadline, you can use the up-arrow twice to pull the System ModelId command back instead of typing it out.

tsctl> System ModelId
System_ModelId_0=0x00004500
tsctl>

Let's run the command again.

tsctl> System ModelId
System_ModelId_1=0x00004500
tsctl>

Notice that the name changed slightly. The first part of the name is the class, the second it the field name (which is also the function name in cases where the value is directly returned at the C API level), and the third is a number. This number is the index of the number of times this class function has been called during the current invocation of tsctl.

Let's switch back to NoAssign mode. Although the field names can be useful if you aren't familiar with what the output fields mean, mostly Assign mode is meant for evaluating by the shell to set variables.

tsctl> Mode NoAssign
tsctl>

Now let's see what base board we have. Your output will differ depending on what you actually have installed.

tsctl> System BaseBoardId
0x00008200
tsctl>

Let's switch back to decimal output.

tsctl> Mode Dec
tsctl>

Now, let's enter the System class onto the command stack so that we don't have to type it repeatedly.

tsctl> System
tsctl System>

Note that our first command, "System" was incomplete, which caused tsctl to push it onto the command stack. This can be used to reduce typing when repetitive sequences start with the same partial command. To pop an element off the stack in the shell, enter an empty line.

One feature of libtsctl is the System Map, which contains name/value pairs. The name is any string (8-bit Array) and the value is an integer. First, let's see how many entries are stored in the table.

tsctl System> MapLength
431
tsctl System>

The entries in the table are stored sorted by name (case-insensitively). Entries are used to store DIO names, enumerated values, attributes, and user-defined name/value pairs. If you want to see the entire table you can get each entry one at a time by index number, starting at 1:

tsctl System> MapGet 1
AIO_ADC
1
tsctl System>

The first line contains the name, while the second contains the value.

To get several entries at once let's first put the function name on the command stack

tsctl System> MapGet
tsctl System MapGet>

One feature of tsctl is the ability to separate commands by a semi-colon. In the shell (e.g. bash) this requires quoting the semi-colon; in the tsctl shell it does not. Let's get the next ten entries:

tsctl System MapGet> 2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9;10;11
AIO_DAC
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.1.0
1
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.1.1
1
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.10.0
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.12.0
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.12.1
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.13.0
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.13.1
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.14.0
2
attrib.8200.Wire.Connector.15.0
2
tsctl System MapGet>

What happened here is that each number got appended as the parameter to the System MapGet function.

Hit enter on an empty line to pop the MapGet function off the command stack.

tsctl System MapGet> 
tsctl System>

Let's look at some of the attributes available. We can find the name of a connector by number as follows:

tsctl System> MapLookupPartial attrib.Connector.Name. 2
CN2_
tsctl System>

How many connectors are there?

tsctl System> MapLookup attrib.Connector.Count
2
tsctl System>

Depending on your system, you may have more than this! How many pins does connector 1 have?

tsctl System> MapLookup attrib.Connector.1.Pins
100
tsctl System>

Most boards have a green and red LEDs, but the DIO number differs from board to board. Let's see what DIO numbers they are on this board. If the lookup fails, a negative value will be returned.

tsctl System> MapLookup;GREEN_LED;RED_LED;;
54
55
tsctl System>

Note that we used two semi-colons with nothing between them to pop the MapLookup function back off the stack.

What connector is the GREEN_LED on? We can determine this by searching the connector attribute for a value corresponding to the DIO number of GREEN_LED. In the above case, that value is 128. However we can also use GREEN_LED, as the tsctl text interface will automatically translate it to the correct value:

tsctl System> MapLookupPartial attrib.Connector. GREEN_LED
2.8
tsctl System>

Note that in a few rare cases the above lookup will conflict with another attribute and may not work. This is because MapLookupPartial looks for a name starting with the specified string, having the specified value. If we specified a value of "100" we might match "attrib.Connector.1.Pins", "attrib.Connector.2.Pins", or "attrib.Connector.1.8" as these all have a value of 100.

The interpretation of 2.8 is "Connector 2, Pin 8". This is also known as "CN2_8", by combining the name of the connector with the pin number on that connector.

tsctl System> MapLookup CN2_8
54
tsctl System>

NOTE: For widest cross-platform compatibility it is recommended to perform lookups based on connectors, rather than board specific DIO names.

How many DIO are on the board?

tsctl System> MapLookup attrib.DIO.Count
88
tsctl System>

If you have a peripheral board such as a baseboard or PC-104 board with supported DIO, you will see a higher number than this. Note that this number counts all raw, internally addressable DIO, regardless of whether or not they are brought out to pins. As such the actual number of usable DIO will frequently be lower than the number contained in this attribute.

Let's pop the System class from the command stack.

tsctl System> 
tsctl>

What revision of the FPGA is on the board?

tsctl> System FPGARevision
4
tsctl>

We can read the I2C (TWI) temp sensor on the TS-4200 with tsctl. First let's switch to hexadecimal output for Arrays of bytes.

tsctl> Mode AHex
tsctl>

Next, we need to make sure that the pins that are used for TWI are correctly set up, as they are frequently multi-function pins. The easiest way to make sure the pins are set correctly is to lock the function you are going to use. As part of locking the pin will be initialized to the correct function. For some boards (notably the TS-4800) the TWI must always be locked during use as it uses an underlying operating system file to perform its functionaity.

tsctl> TWI Lock 0 0
1
tsctl>

Now verify that the temperature sensor is present at device address 0x49.

tsctl> TWI Read 0x49 1 7 2
TWISuccess
0x01:0x90
tsctl>

If the bytes read back are not 0x01:0x90 (the first value returned is the result code), then the temperature sensor is not present, or there is another problem with the TWI bus. Assuming we get the correct response back, we can next send the commands to start an aquisition, and read back the raw temperature data from the sensor.

tsctl> TWI Write;0x49 1 1 0x40:0x0;0x49 0 0 0x40:0x0;;Read 0x49 1 0 2;;
TWISuccess
TWISuccess
TWISuccess
0x15:0x40
tsctl>


The value returned can be converted to a temperature as follows:

tempC = (byte[0] * 256 + byte[1]) / 128
tempC = (0x15 * 256 + 0x40) / 128
tempC = 42.5C

Note: The ts8160ctl sample application provides the above TWI temp sensor reading functionality using the -t option.

Be sure to unlock any resource when you are done. Best practice is to hold a lock for the minimum amount of time necessary.

tsctl> TWI Unlock 0 0
1
tsctl>

There are also several timing based functions you can use. For instance, you can delay for a specific amount of time. You should see a delay of approximately 1 second (1,000,000 microseconds) when running the command below:

tsctl> Time;Delay 1000000
tsctl Time>

Note that the Delay function does not return a value. If you want to see the actual number of microseconds delayed, use the Wait function instead:

tsctl Time> Wait 1000000;;
1018053
tsctl>

The only difference between Wait and Delay is that the former returns the number of microseconds actually spend waiting, and the latter returns no value. This is an important nuance in the TCP classes, as in certain modes functions that return no data are not called until subsequent functions that do return data are called. This allows for things such as commanding a relay to cycle power on the board issuing the command (so long as it isn't the board interpreting the command), since otherwise the command to restore power would not be sent before power was cut.

Short delay times are generally only useful when using direct access from C. Otherwise, the overhead of parsing the command, sending it across TCP, and interpreting it on the server will be significant in comparison to the amount of time to delay.

We can send and receive CAN messages with tsctl. To do this, it is first necessary to connect the TS-4700 CAN bus to another device which is able to send and receive messages.

First, switch to the CAN class:

tsctl> CAN
tsctl CAN>

Next, set the baud rate:

tsctl CAN> BaudSet 1000000
1000000
tsctl CAN>

Now set up the remote device to receive, and then send a message from the TS-4500. The message will used extended addressing, will have an address of 0x1234, and have eight bytes of incrementing data starting with a value of 1:

tsctl CAN> Tx FLAG_EXT_ID 0x1234 1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8
CANSuccess
tsctl CAN>

If all goes well Tx should return a positive value to indicate success. Now wait for a CAN message to be received. Our initial call to Tx automatically enabled CAN to transmit, so if we received a message between that time and when we call Rx it will return immediately. TO DO: CAN Rx

Sometimes it may be desirable to try to receive multiple CAN messages with a single command. The RxMulti command specifies a maximum and minimum number of messages to receive before returning. A minimum value of zero indicates to only poll for any messages ready and does not block if no message is waiting. TO DO: CAN RxMulti

Features

CPU

This board features a CNS2132 250MHz ARM9 processor. For more details see the CPU Datasheet.

FPGA

This board features a Lattice LFXP2 FPGA. The CPU connects to the FPGA using SPI, and since access to SPI is not atomic we have implemented the SBUS as a safe way for multiple processes to access FPGA registers.

FPGA Bitstreams

The FPGA has the capability to be reloaded on startup and reprogram itself with different configurations. The default bitstream is hardcoded into the FPGA, but the soft reloaded bitstreams can be placed in /ts7500_bitstream.vme.gz on the initrd root to make the board load the bitstream on startup. You can also load the bitstream manually using ts7500ctl:

ts7500ctl --loadfpga bitstream.vme
# or
ts7500ctl --loadfpga bitstream.vme.gz

A list of our pre-built bitstreams can be found on our FTP site

If we do not have a configuration you need, you can build a new bitstream, or contact us for our engineering services.

Bitstream Revision SD controller SPI XNAND CAN XUARTs
Default 6 On On On On 0-1
ts4500_opencore-rev6-8XUART 6 On On On Off 0-7
FPGA Revision Log
Revision Changes
0 Initial Release
1 Added another bit to SPI speed to allow lower speeds (1.2Mhz), Fixed DIO pins
2 Fixed CAN clock enable/disable.
3 Added full-duplex RS485 (RS422) enable bit to syscon.
4 Fix CAN and resynchronizers.
5 Bootrom changed to make extended temp mode use 175Mhz CPU rather than 200Mhz for SD card access.
6 Bootrom change to modify CPU startup code to not wait for IRQ as it may not function properly

FPGA Programming

Note: We do not provide support for the opencores under our free support, however we do offer custom FPGA programming services. If interested, please contact us.

The opencore FPGA sources are available here.

We have prepared the opencore projects which gives you the ability to reprogram the FPGA while either preserving or removing our functionality as you choose. The code sources are in verilog, and we use Lattice Diamond to generate the JEDEC file. You can download Lattice Diamond from their site. You can request a free license, and it will run in either Windows or Linux (only Redhat is supported). In the sources you can find the functionality switches in the <boardname>_top.v file:

parameter sdcard_opt = 1'b1;
parameter spi_opt = 1'b1;
parameter nandflash_opt = 1'b1;
parameter can_opt = 1'b1; /*If CAN is enabled, only two XUARTs can be used*/
/* software currently requires these to be enabled/disabled contiguously. */
parameter xuart0_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart1_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart2_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart3_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart4_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart5_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart6_opt = 1'b0;
parameter xuart7_opt = 1'b0;

You can use these switches to enable and disable functionality. We do not enable everything at the same time because of space constraints on the FPGA. So for example, to disable CAN and enable the rest of the XUARTS:

parameter sdcard_opt = 1'b1;
parameter spi_opt = 1'b1;
parameter nandflash_opt = 1'b1;
parameter can_opt = 1'b0; /*If CAN is enabled, only two XUARTs can be used*/
/* software currently requires these to be enabled/disabled contiguously. */
parameter xuart0_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart1_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart2_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart3_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart4_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart5_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart6_opt = 1'b1;
parameter xuart7_opt = 1'b1;

For more advanced changes you may look to opencores.org which has many examples of FPGA cores. To build the FPGA with your new changes, go to the 'Processes' tab and double-click 'JEDEC File'. This will build a jedec file in the project directory. On a linux system, either x86 compatible or ARM, we provide an application called jed2vme.

jed2vme for x86

jed2vme for ARM (oabi)

We also have the sources here.

WARNING: Do not use the 'jed2vme' provided by Lattice. Their version writes to flash and as the opencores do not contain the bootrom so this will brick your board.

jed2vme can be used like this:

jed2vme bitstream.jed | gzip > bitstream.vme.gz

To execute this on your board run this:

ts7500ctl --loadfpga=bitstream.vme
# or
ts7500ctl --loadfpga=bitstream.vme.gz

As space is constrained in the initrd it is suggested to gzip the file as shown in the jed2vme example. To load this bitstream automatically you can place it in the root of the initrd and name it '/ts7500_bitstream.vme.gz'. The linuxrc script will by default load this bitstream immediately on startup (before the fastboot shell). You should first test it manually to make sure it loads ok.

The FPGA contains flash memory which contains Technologic System's default FPGA flash load. Using an SRAM bitstream generated by our "jed2vme" with "ts7500ctl --loadfpga" will not overwrite the flash memory of the FPGA and will only load the SRAM contents of the FPGA, making for an unbrickable system.

XUARTs

The XUART controller is a core we have included in the FPGA, as well as a userspace application called xuartctl for accessing these UARTs. Rather than using a kernel driver with the standard serial interface, we have implemented the XUARTs with features to simplify application development. The XUARTs allow you to easily use arbitrary baud rates, nonstandard modes such as DMX or 9n1, and they allow a very low latency operation. The XUART layer also uses the very low overhead TCP layer which allows you to transport serial over the network without writing any code.

The simplest example to get started is to define the port with:

xuartctl --server --port=1 --speed=115200

This will return "ttyname=/dev/pts/0", or a higher pts number. You can use this /dev/pts/# device to access the UART, but note that the pts device number can change based on other ssh, telnet or other processes. See this section for a sample script to setup the XUARTs with a predictable device name.

For more information and detailed usage, see the xuartctl page.

The XUARTs like many other standard UARTs poll the RX buffers by default. The XUARTs have large RX FIFOs so polling at 100hz is the best choice for many applications. At the expense of more CPU time you can use an IRQ to achieve a much lower latency. This board uses IRQ 29 for the XUART IRQ. You can edit the linuxrc script and change the xuartctl server to start with:

xuartctl --irq=29 --server

LEDs

On all of our baseboards we include 2 indicator LEDs which are under software control. You can manipulate these using ts4500ctl --greenledon --redledon or ts4500ctl --greenledoff --redledoff. The LEDs have 4 behaviors from default software.

Green Behavior Red behavior Meaning
Solid Green No red System is booted and running
Solid Green Red for approximately 15s Once the system has booted the kernel and executed the startup script, it will check for a USB device and then determine if it is a mass storage device. This is used for updates/blasting through USB. Once it determines this is not a mass storage device the red LED will turn back off.
Green solid for 10s, off for 100ms, and repeating Red turns on after green turns off for 300ms, and then turns off for 10s The watchdog is continuously resetting the board. This happens when the system cannot find a valid boot device, or the watchdog is otherwise not being fed. This is normally fed by ts4500ctl once a valid boot media has started. See the #Watchdog section for more details, and verify you have a valid boot media.
Green Off Red Off The FPGA is not able to start. Typically either the board is not being supplied with enough voltage, or the FPGA has been otherwise damaged. If a stable 5V is being provided and the supply is capable of providing at least 1A to the System-on-Module (SoM), an RMA is suggested.
Green blinking about 5ms on, about 10ms off. Red blinking about 5ms on, about 10ms off. The board is receiving too little voltage, or something is drawing too much current from the SoM's 3.3V rail.

RTC

The RTC connects through I2C to the FPGA. Typically, the battery-backed real time clock is only set or read in the linuxrc bootup script by the ts7500ctl utility. It is only necessary to read the RTC once per bootup to initialize the Linux time of day. This is done with the command "ts7500ctl --getrtc". To set the RTC time, you simply set the Linux time of day (with e.g. the "date" utility) and then run ts7500ctl --setrtc. RTC's are already set before shipment to atomic UTC time and should hold time within 15 PPM while at room temperature.

WARNING: Be careful when handling board with a battery inserted -- the battery holder leads are through-hole and should the board be placed on a conductive surface and short the battery leads, the RTC will loose its track of time and need to be reset.

XNAND

The XNAND is our layer of software and an FPGA core which is designed to vastly increase the reliability of NAND access. This board includes a 512MB flash chip, but the XNAND algorithm will limit this to a usable 256MB from redundancy. The software layer to access the XNAND is implemented in userspace in conjunction with NBD (network block device). You may want to refer to the nandctl page which will show more advanced usage, but by default the linuxrc script will mount the sd card with the following layout:

 /dev/nbd0 - whole disk device of XNAND drive
 /dev/nbd1 - 1st partition (kernel partition)
 /dev/nbd2 - 2nd partition (EXT2 initrd)
 /dev/nbd3 - 3rd partition (~252MByte mini Debian EXT3 filesystem)
 /dev/nbd4 - 4th partition (unused)
 
Note: NBD devices report their size as SIZE_MAX for more flexibility when using them with nandctl. If you are formatting a partition or using dd you will need to specify the size of the block device or partition.

XNAND2

XNAND2 is an innovation built upon its XNAND predecessor. This engineering effort was predicated by the NAND industry's falling quality standards and Technologic Systems' dedication to continued superior quality, long lifespan products. XNAND2 introduces a more robust system of redundant, error-corrected data storage, and a whole-device wear leveling system that ensures the longest possible lifespan for NAND media.

Please see our whitepaper on the subject for more detail and information.


To facilitate this new paradigm, a new 'nandctl' binary has been introduced. The features and output of this new utility are detailed in this section.

The command line options for the XNAND2 nandctl are very similar to the original:

# nandctl --help
Usage: nandctl [OPTION] ...
Technologic Systems NAND flash manipulation.

General options:
  -R, --read=N            Read N blocks of flash to stdout
  -W, --write=N           Write N blocks to flash
  -x, --writeset=BYTE     Write BYTE as value (default 0)
  -i, --writeimg=FILE     Use FILE as file to write to NAND
  -t, --writetest         Run write speed test
  -r, --readtest          Run read speed test
  -n, --random=SEED       Do random seeks for tests
  -z, --blocksize=SZ      Use SZ bytes each read/write call
  -k, --seek=SECTOR       Seek to 512b sector number SECTOR
  -d, --nbdserver=NBDSPEC Run NBD userspace block driver server
  -I, --bind=IPADDR       Bind NBD server to IPADDR
  -Q, --stats             Print NBD server stats
  -m, --dmesg             Print log of NAND activity
  -f, --foreground        Run NBD server in foreground
  -X, --xnand             Use XNAND RAID layer
  -I, --xnandinit         Initialize flash chip for XNAND
  -L, --listbb            List all factory bad blocks
  -v, --verbose           Be verbose (-vv for maximum)
  -P, --printmbr          Print MBR and partition table
  -M, --setmbr            Write MBR from environment variables
  -h, --help              This help

When running a NBD server, NBDSPEC is a comma separated list of
devices and partitions for the NBD servers starting at port 7525.
e.g. "lun0:part1,lun1:disc" corresponds to 2 NBD servers, one at port
7525 serving the first partition of chip #0, and the other at TCP
port 7526 serving the whole disc device of chip #1.

The --dmesg command will show a running event log since boot. This is useful for troubleshooting if a failure is suspected.

The --stats command will show a mixture of long-term and short-term statistical data about the NAND chip and the XNAND2 layer over it:

# nandctl --stats
nbdpid=146
nbd_readreqs=0
nbd_read_blks=0
nbd_writereqs=0
nbd_write_blks=0
nbd_seek_past_eof_errs=0
xnand2_most_worn=5936
xnand2_spares_used=6
xnand2_spares_remaining=1014
xnand2_total_erases=24156537
xnand2_ecc_fixups=0
xnand2_parity_recovers=0
read_seeks=0
write_seeks=0

This --stats output is helpful for systems where monitoring long-term health is useful.

Stats output definitions:
nbdpid: This is the process id of the nandctl process.
nbd_readreqs: This is the number of read requests received by nandctl since boot.
nbd_read_blks: This is the number of blocks read by the nbd client since boot.
nbd_writereqs: This is the number of write requests received by nandctl since boot.
nbd_write_blks: This is the number of blocks written by the nbd client since boot.
nbd_seek_past_eof_errs: This statistic should always read zero. It's the number of times the OS has asked nandctl to seek past the end of the media.
xnand2_most_worn: This is the number of writes that have been made to the most worn block on the NAND chip over the lifetime of the XNAND2 media.
xnand2_spares_used: This is the number of bad blocks marked by XNAND2 over the lifetime of the XNAND2 media.
xnand2_spares_remaining: This is the number of blocks not currently in active use by the disk block device or the RAID5 like redundant data backup.  They are available to participate in wear-leveling activities (along with the blocks used by the disk block device and redundant data).
xnand2_total_erases: This is the number of erases over the lifetime of the XNAND2 media since boot.
xnand2_ecc_fixups: This is the total number of ecc correctable errors XNAND2 has corrected since boot.
xnand2_parity_recovers: This is the total number of blocks XNAND2 has had to recover from parity data.
read_seeks: This is the number of read seeks done since boot.
write_seeks: This is the number of write seeks done since boot.

Upgrading to XNAND2

Replacing XNAND with XNAND2 in a dd image for use in production programing
The updated nandctl binary with XNAND2 support can be found here.


An XNAND2 formatted NAND device will work on supported products with any bootrom date, whether or not the bootrom supports XNAND2.  However, devices can only be booted from the XNAND technology that their bootrom supports. An XNAND2 formatted NAND cannot be booted from a bootrom that only supports XNAND1 and vice versa. This allows for application support of XNAND2, regardless of bootrom support, but only if NAND is not the boot media. Because of this, it is important to update all programming and production processes to support XNAND2. For other production preparation processes that do not re-image the entire device, it is still important to confirm the production process is using the XNAND2 nandctl binary dated October 2016 or later. The following section provides the necessary information to update an existing XNAND1 image with the new XNAND2 nandctl software.

The latest nandctl binary is compatible with both XNAND1 and XNAND2; however it will assume that disk initialization will be targeted at XNAND2 support and it is not possible to force XNAND1 formatting. Because of this, the bootrom should be updated to be compatible with XNAND2 before using '--xnandinit' against a NAND device using the latest nandctl binary. TS-BOOTROMs with a date after October 2016 are compatible with and able to boot XNAND2 devices.

This update will walk through the steps of updating the nandctl binary contained in a customized production image. These steps are not necessary when using our stock image, only if your production process is using an SD or NAND image that has been based on any of our previous shipping images. Note that both SD and NAND images should be updated to properly support XNAND2 in all situations.

To prepare this update, a workstation running linux is necessary, either in a virtual machine or native install. From the workstation, open a terminal window and copy your original production image file to a local working directory (this is done to limit working on production used images).  This file will be referenced as diskimg.dd in the following instructions. The latest XNAND2 compatible nandctl binary (link to download is at the top of this section) should also be downloaded in the same working directory.

Next, run the following command:

sudo fdisk -l diskimg.dd

This will produce output like the following:

Disk diskimg.dd: 268 MB, 268435456 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32 cylinders, total 524288 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

      Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
diskimg.dd1                1        5119        2559+  da  Non-FS data
diskimg.dd2             5120       10239        2560   da  Non-FS data
diskimg.dd3            10240      524287      257024   83  Linux

The above is the partition table of an XNAND disk. An image for an SD card will have 4 partitions rather than 3, but the same basic layout. The necessary information is the start sector of the second partition with the Id of "da," and the "Sector size" listed above the partition table. In this case it is partition 2 in which the start block is 5120 and the Sector size is 512. Multiply the two numbers to obtain the necessary offset:  5120 * 512 = 2621440.

Next, the initrd partition from the disk image file is mounted to a folder created in the working directory:

mkdir mnt
sudo mount -orw,loop,offset=$((5120*512)) diskimg.dd mnt/

The new XNAND2 nandctl binary is copied to the mounted folder structure

cp nandctl mnt/sbin/nandctl
sync

The disk image can be unmounted and renamed as needed:

sudo umount mnt
mv diskimg.dd diskimg-xnand2.dd

COM Ports

This board has 1 CPU UART for Debug TX and RX available at /dev/ttyS0. This board also features up to 7 #XUARTs. The XUART ports will be controlled with xuartctl. By default they will not have devices in /dev/.

All UARTS are brought out from the SoM as TTL. See your baseboard for more details on how these UARTs are brought out (RS232, RS485, etc).

Device TX RX TX Enable
/dev/ttyS0 CN2-93 CN2-95 N/A
XUART0 CN2-78, DIO_36 CN2-80, DIO_37 CN1-67, DIO_12
XUART0 [1] N/A CN1-65, DIO_13 N/A
XUART1 CN2-82, DIO_38 CN2-84, DIO_39 CN1-65, DIO_13 [2]
XUART2 CN2-86, DIO_22 CN2-88, DIO_44 CN1-63, DIO_14
XUART3 CN2-90, DIO_45 CN2-92, DIO_46 N/A
XUART4 CN2-94, DIO_47 CN2-96, DIO_40 N/A
XUART4 [3] CN2-94, DIO_47 CN1-65, DIO_13 N/A
XUART5 CN2-98, DIO_41 CN2-100, DIO_42 N/A
XUART6 CN1-71, DIO_10 CN1-69, DIO_11 N/A
XUART7 [4] CN1-74, DIO_29 CN1-76, DIO_28 N/A
  1. This XUART is not in this state by default, but is remapped when the "TS-8510 RS422 enable" bit is set in the #Syscon.
  2. This TX enable line can be remapped as XUART 0 when the "TS-8510 RS422 enable" bit is set in the #Syscon. The other TX/RX lines are not affected by this register.
  3. This XUART is not in this state by default, but is remapped when the "RS422 enable" bit is set in the #Syscon.
  4. This is not available when using the MUXBUS
Note: XUARTS 0-1 are the only active XUARTs in the default FPGA. See the #FPGA Bitstreams section for information on bitstreams containing additional UARTs.

The remapped XUART for RS422/RS485 moves one XUART to where it can receive a differential line, while the other RS485 port handles transmit. This option is only needed for certain baseboards. You can set this by running ts7500ctl:

ts7500ctl --rs422=1

This will set the appropriate bit if you are on a TS-8510, or another board will set the RS422 enable.

SD

This product contains our SD controller implemented in the FPGA. This will support both SD and SDHC cards, sizes up to 32GB are supported. The SD card access is implemented in userspace by acting as an NBD server. The sdctl page which will show more advanced usage and the linuxrc script will bring up the nbd-clients in this layout:

 /dev/nbd5 - whole disk device of microSD card
 /dev/nbd6 - 1st partition of SD card (Windows VFAT filesystem on devkit card)
 /dev/nbd7 - 2nd partition of SD card (kernel partition on devkit card)
 /dev/nbd8 - 3rd partition of SD card (EXT2 initrd partition on devkit card)
 /dev/nbd9 - 4th partition of SD card (Debian EXT3 filesystem on devkit card)
Note: NBD devices report their size as SIZE_MAX for more flexibility when using them with sdctl. If you are formatting a partition or using dd you will need to specify the size of the block device or partition.

SPI Flash

The SPI flash is also implemented in userspace with NBD, however it is not mounted or running by default. Even when you are booted to SPI, it does not need to access it directly since the bootrom will load it into memory before the Linux kernel is even executing. If you want to mount any part of it see the spiflashctl page for usage.

USB Host

The Cavium CPU supplies standard USB 2.0 ports. The power to the USB can also be toggled by setting a DIO.

# This is sourced in the initrd, but if you are running
# from Debian you will need to source the subroutine file.
source /initrd/ts7500.subr

# Power off USB
setdiopin 7 0

# Power on USB
setdiopin 7 1

USB Device

This board contain both USB Host and USB Device ports. This section will discuss the configuration and use of the Linux USB device gadgets (http://www.linux-usb.org/). The two supported gadgets are 1) USB Mass Storage Device and 2) IP over USB (A.K.A. USB Ethernet).

The USB Mass Storage Device Linux USB gadget will allow you to use your SBC as a storage device, like a USB thumb drive, when connected to a host PC. Subsequently, the SBC can access the saved data through the storage element named usb_storage_file.

The IP over USB (A.K.A. USB Ethernet) Linux USB gadget will allow you to connect to your SBC with a USB cable from a PC like you would with a CAT5 Ethernet cable. You will have access to the SBC via the TCP/IP connection allowing you to use any networking utility (e.g. ping, ssh, ftp, http, etc).

All software modules required for Linux are contained on recent SBCs (those released with the May 18, 2010 or later software load). For Windows, a driver interface configuration file (linux.inf) will need to be downloaded and installed on the host PC. This procedure is described in detail below. The linux.inf file can be downloaded here.

USB Device as Mass Storage

The USB Gadget file storage device will allow you to allow access to a block device (file or otherwise) over USB. To use this functionality, you must first have a block device to give to the driver. In this example I will use a 100MB file on the Debian filesystem.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/root/usbstorage.img bs=1MB count=100

Load the driver with the file as an argument

modprobe g_file_storage file=/root/usbstorage.img

If you now, or are have already connected the USB device cable to a host pc, you should now see the USB device. Like inserting any other usb drive you should now have a new device on your system. From a linux host pc:

[690892.624575] sd 23:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[690892.626160] sd 23:0:0:0: [sdd] 195312 512-byte logical blocks: (99.9 MB/95.3 MiB)
[690892.628419] sd 23:0:0:0: [sdd] Write Protect is off
[690892.628424] sd 23:0:0:0: [sdd] Mode Sense: 0f 00 00 00
[690892.628911] sd 23:0:0:0: [sdd] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[690892.644202]  sdd: unknown partition table
[690892.647287] sd 23:0:0:0: [sdd] Attached SCSI disk

Now on your workstation you can use this device as any other usb storage. As this file contains all zeros, you will need to format it and create a partition/filesystem to be able to store data on it. See the documentation for your workstation for more details. Keep in mind you cannot mount the same block device or file twice so this will not allow you to share your live filesystem over USB.

USB Device as USB Ethernet

In order to use USB Device as USB Ethernet you will first need a new kernel compiled from source. The instructions to compile the kernel can be found here.

Install the kernel Now that you have a kernel you can install it as you would our stock. See the #Backup / Restore section for examples on writing this to media.

Once you have added the newly compiled kernel to your image you will now have Ethernet Gadgets driver built in which will allow you to use USB Device as USB Ethernet. The board must be setup prior to connection to a host PC.

Now assign an IP address to the new usb0 interface

ifconfig usb0 192.168.42.20

The IP address in the above example may be any valid IP address, but should typically not be on the same subnet as the Ethernet network on the the board (if connected), or the host computer to which the SBC will be connected.

Connecting Linux Host to the board via IP over USB

Most modern Linux distributions already have all of the required modules (such as usbnet.ko) and utilities installed, so the setup steps are minimal. Simply plug in the board after it has been prepared for IP over USB (see above) and observe that a new interface has been added named usb0 or similar (use dmesg | tail to verify). You can now assign an IP address to that interface with ifconfig (e.g. ifconfig usb0 192.168.42.21) and begin using the TCP/IP connection. To test your connection, use ping 192.168.42.20. You should also be able to login to the SBC using ssh ie. ssh root@192.168.42.40.

Connecting Windows XP Host to the board via IP over USB

An additional driver interface configuration file called linux.inf is required for IP over USB connection to a Windows host. First, download this file onto the Windows PC and remember where you placed it. The linux.inf file can be downloaded here. Next, connect the board and Windows PC with the A to B USB cable (ISB Cable). You should see the "Found New Hardware Wizard". Answer the prompts as follows:

  • Select Include this location in the search and choose the location of the driver you downloaded. Finish running the wizard.
  • Go to the Control Panel and open "Network Connections". Right-click the new connection (labeled "Linux USB Ethernet/RNDIS Gadget") and click "Rename". Rename it to something useful such as "USB Network".
  • Right-click on the newly labeled icon, and select properties.
  • Under the properties General tab, select the item labeled Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
  • Select Use the following IP Address, and enter 192.168.42.21.
  • Click OK; Click OK
  • You may now access the board via the TCP/IP connection. Use ping in the Command Prompt window to verify connectivity (e.g. ping 192.168.42.20).
Note: The IP address above may be any valid IP address, but must be in the same subnet as the IP address assigned to the board IP over USB connection above. The subnet used should also be different from any other interfaces on the SBC or PC, otherwise strange results may occur.

CAN

The FPGA contains a SJA1000C compatible CAN controller that can be accessed using canctl which provides a CAN network service. Any application on the network can make use of this service to send or receive CAN packets using the API defined by canctl. Thus, it is possible to develop code written in other languages (java, python, etc.) and/or to run this code under other operating systems.

The canctl server is started by running:

Note: Due to a bug in some releases, daqctl will grab the IRQ before canctl. If CAN is unable to take the IRQ you can stop the daqctl process to reclaim it:
killall daqctl
canctl --server

The easiest interface to CAN is calling "canctl" through the command line:

canctl --port=127.0.0.1 --txdat=01:02:03:04:05:06
# canctl --help
Technologic Systems CAN controller manipulation.
-a | --address=ADR        CAN register address
-b | --baud=BAUD          CAN baud rate (7500 to 1000000)
-R | --peek8r             CAN register read
-W | --poke8w=VAL         CAN register write
-i | --txid=ID            CAN TX packet ID
-T | --txrtr              TX RTR packet
-d | --txdat=DAT          TX packet with data DAT
-s | --server==<port>     Daemonize and run as server
-D | --dump               Receive and print all CAN packets
-0 | --btr0=BTR0          SJA1000 BTR0 bus timing reg val
-1 | --btr1=BTR1          SJA1000 BTR1 bus timing reg val
-t | --txtest             Send TX test pattern
-r | --rxtest             Do RX test
-p | --port=<host><:port> Talk to canctl server
-S | --std                Send standard frame (not extended)
-v | --recover            Automatically recover from bus-off

The canctl application implements network CAN functionality using the can_rx_remote() and can_tx_remote() functions. These functions which read and write one fixed-size packet of struct canmsg to a TCP socket descriptor. Writing your own canctl client in the language of your choice is as simple as doing the same thing. The format of the each CAN packet sent or received via the network interface is described below. The terms "Rx" and "Tx" are relative to the client, so "Rx" would describe packets read from CAN over the network and "Tx" would describe packets written to CAN over the network.


 UINT32   flags:
          bit 7 - set on Tx if packet is a control packet
                  control packets are intercepted by the
                  canctl server to allow control functionality.
          bit 6 - set if message originates locally (unused)
          bit 5 - set if CAN message has extended ID
          bit 4 - set if remote transmission request (RTR)
          bit 3 - set on Rx if CAN error warning condition occurred
          bit 2 - set on Rx if CAN bus had a data overrun
          bit 1 - set on Rx if CAN bus went error passive
          bit 0 - set on Rx if a CAN bus error occurred
          Error conditions are reported for informational
          purposes.  The server normally handles these errors
          and recovers from them.
              control information present (reserved for future use)
              message originates from this node (unused)
 UINT32   CAN id
 UINT32   timestamp_seconds
 UINT32   timestamp_microseconds
 UINT32   bytes of CAN data which are valid
          if bit 7 of flags is set, this byte is instead interpreted
          as a command number:
            0 = set acceptance filter
              if the acceptance filter has been set, then only
              CAN packets which pass the filter will be received.
              to pass the filter, all bits in the acceptance filter
              which are to be checked (specified by a 1 in the
              corresponding bit of the mask) are compared (filter
              id compared to corresponding bit in received id).
              only if all bits to be checked do match will the
              packet be received.
 UINT8[8] CAN data
          if bit 7 of flags is set, this byte is instead interpreted
          as follows:
            cmd 0:
              UINT32 acceptance filter id
              UINT32 acceptance filter mask

UINT32 values are sent in little-endian format.

So for example, to send a standard CAN packet of length 6 with contents 01:02:03:04:05:06 and CAN id 55 it would be necessary to open a TCP connection to port 7552 on the device with the canctl server running, and the write the following packet to the socket:

  00 00 00 00 55 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 06 00 00 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 00 00

Baseboard ID

All of our off the shelf baseboards contain a hard wired 3-state 8-input multiplexers. This is not required to implement in custom baseboards, but it can be useful to identify the board in software. During startup of the System-on-Module, 4 DIO are used to obtain the baseboard model ID. The red LED (CN2_06) is state 0, green LED (CN2_08) is state 1, BUS_DIR (CN1_98) is state 2, and BD_ID_DATA (CN1_83) is used for data.

The first 6 lines are used as the six bits that define the baseboard. The last two lines (Y6 & Y7 in the schematic image below) define the bits to indicate the board revision.

You can find example code for accessing the baseboard ID in ts7500ctl. For example, "ts7500ctl -B" will return "baseboard_model=" with the detected baseboard.

For custom baseboards we have reserved the address 42 which will never be used by our standard products.

TS-8160 baseboard ID resulting in ID 6.


TS-Baseboard IDs
ID Baseboard
0 TS-8200
1 Reserved, do not use
2 TS-TPC-8390
4 TS-8500
5 TS-8400
6 TS-8160
7 TS-8100
8 TS-8820-BOX
9 TS-8150
10 TS-TPC-8900
11 TS-8290
13 TS-8700
14 TS-8280
15 TS-8380
16 TS-AN20
17 TS-TPC-8920
19 TS-8550
20 TS-TPC-8950
22 TS-8551
42 Reserved for customer use, never used by us
63 TS-8200

Syscon

The Syscon is an FPGA core that presents various configuration registers for the board. These registers are accessed through the SBUS. For example, to read the "Model ID" register:

ts7500ctl --address=0x60 --peek16

Most of these functions are already implemented in ts7500ctl which can be used as a reference implementation.

Offset Bits Access Function
0x60 15-0 Read Only Model ID
0x62 15 Read/Write Green LED (1 = on)
14 Read/Write Red LED (1 = on)
13 Read/Write RTC SCL input
12 Read/Write RTC SDA input
11 Read/Write RTC SCL direction (1 - output)
10 Read/Write RTC SDA direction (1 - output)
9 Read/Write RTC SCL output
8 Read/Write RTC SDA output
7-4 Read Only Board submodel
3-0 Read Only FPGA revision [1]
0x64 15-0 Read Only 16-bits of random data changed every 1 second.
0x66 15-12 Read Only DIO input for pins 40(MSB)-37(LSB)
11-8 Read/Write DIO output for pins 40(MSB)-37(LSB)
7-4 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 40(MSB)-37(LSB) (1 - output)
3 Read/Write Lattice tagmem clock
2 Read/Write Lattice tagmem serial-in (RW)
1 Read/Write Lattice tagmem CSn
0 Read Only Lattice tagmem serial-out (RO)
0x68 15-0 Read Only DIO input for pins 36(MSB)-21(LSB)
0x6a 15-0 Read Only DIO output for pins 36(MSB)-21(LSB)
0x6c 15-0 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 36(MSB)-21(LSB) (1 - output)
0x6e 15-0 Read/Write DIO input for pins 20(MSB)-5(LSB)
0x70 15-0 Read/Write DIO output for pins 20(MSB)-5(LSB)
0x72 15-0 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 20(MSB)-5(LSB) (1 - output)
0x74 15-0 Write Only Watchdog feed register
0x76 15-14 N/A Reserved
13 Read/Write RS422 enable [2]
12 Read/Write TS-8510 RS422 enable [2]
11 Read/Write CAN Enable
10-6 Read/Write PLL phase
5 Read Only mode3 latched bootstrap bit
4 Read/Write Reset switch enable (1 - auto reboot when dio_i[9] == 0)
3-2 Read/Write scratch reg
1 Read Only mode2 latched bootstrap bit
0 Read Only mode1 latched bootstrap bit
0x78 15 Read Only Reserved
14-10 Read Only DIO Input for pins 4(MSB)-0(LSB)
9-5 Read/Write DIO output for pins 4(MSB)-0(LSB)
4-0 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 4(MSB)-0(LSB)
0x7a 15-8 Read/Write DIO output for pins 48(MSB)-41(LSB)
7-0 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 48(MSB)-41(LSB)
0x7c 15-12 Read Only Reserved
11-0 Read Only DIO input for pins 52(MSB)-41(LSB)
0x7e 15-8 Read Only Reserved
7-4 Read/Write DIO output for pints 52(MSB)-49(LSB)
3-0 Read/Write DIO direction for pins 52(MSB)-49(LSB)
  1. See #FPGA Bitstreams for more information on the FPGA revisions.
  2. 2.0 2.1 See the #COM Ports section for more details about this register

Watchdog

By default the watchdog is fed by ts7500ctl. This way if userspace, the kernel, or the FPGA communication has any issue the board will reboot. For many applications this may be enough, but you can tailor this more specifically to your application by feeding the watchdog on your own criteria. The watchdog feed register is write-only. Valid write values are:

Value Result
0 feed watchdog for another .338s
1 feed watchdog for another 2.706s
2 feed watchdog for another 10.824s
3 disable watchdog

Watchdog by default comes out of reset armed for .338 seconds. TS-BOOTROM firmware feeds for 10.824 and OS code has 10.824 seconds to take over. If you would like to run your own watchdog you will need to kill ts7500ctl when switching to your own application. You can feed the watchdog from your application by poking a register:

// Compile with gcc filename.c -o watchdog
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include "sbus.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
        // This is an example of feeding the watchdog for 10s
        for (;;) 
        {
                sbuslock();
                sbus_poke16(0x74, 2);
                sbusunlock();
                sleep(5); // Sleeping half of the 
                          // feeding time is usually a safe value
        }

        return 0;
}

DIO

This board brings out only FPGA DIO. Since the FPGA is connected to the processor using SPI which is not atomic, we have created the SBUS which allows safe access from multiple processes. The SBUS mechanism of locking as well as it being a serial bus to the FPGA does put a limit on how fast the DIO can be read or set. Depending on the needs of the application the code can be structured to provide a bit of flexibility in speeds.

The "ts7500.subr" file provides the simplest method for accessing these DIO, but not the fastest:

# If you're in the initrd:
source /ts7500.subr

# If you're in Debian:
source /initrd/ts7500.subr

#Usage: setdiopin <pin> <1,0,Z> <b>
setdiopin 20 0

#Usage: getdiopin <pin>
getdiopin 21

You can also interface with this DIO in C using the example here.

...
sbuslock();
setdiopin(21, (getdiopin(21) ^ 0x01));
sbusunlock();
...

Using this method of an atomic read-modify-write will achieve about a 20KHz wave with a 50% duty cycle.

...
sbuslock();
setdiopin(21, 1);
setdiopin(21, 0);
sbusunlock();
...

Using this method of atomic writes will achieve about a 30KHz wave with about a 20% duty cycle.

The SBUS link between the FPGA and CPU is SPI with a 16-bit data frame per bus cycle. When setting and reading one pin at a time, a whole 16-bit cycle is used to accomplish the needed goal. If multiple pins need to be set or read at once, a performance gain can be had from reading/writing entire 16bit registers at a time as opposed to iterating through each pin sequentially.

Other factors can contribute to speeds of the SBUS. Since the SBUS is shared across multiple peripherals there could be bus contention. It may also be that there are very few other applications wanting access to the bus, it all depends on usage. There is more overhead in doing a sbuslock() and sbusunlock() after every transaction than there would be to queue up transactions, lock the bus, and then do them all at once. There is also another function provided in sbus.c that is a smarter version of sbusunlock(), it is called sbuspreempt(). sbuspreempt() will check to see if any other applications are blocked in acquiring the lock, if there are, the SBUS is unlocked, giving other applications access to it. If there are no other applications waiting for the lock, the current application retains the lock. The benefit of this, is next time sbuslock() is called, the function returns almost instantly because the lock is already held. This greatly reduces overhead.

It may be necessary to "tune" an application with locking, unlocking, and preempting the SBUS to find what works best if speed is a factor.

The DIO registers are described in the #Syscon section. This board has 40 logical DIO registers on the FPGA to remain consistant with the series, but not all of the pins are brought out. DIO 9 by default is an external reset which is pulled high, and when it is set to 0 the board will reboot. You can disable this functionality by clearing bit 4 of 0x76 in the #Syscon.

DIO Number Location Alternate Function
0 CN1_93 PC104 IRQ 5
1 CN1_91 PC104 IRQ 6
2 CN1_89 PC104 IRQ 7
3 CN1_87 Optional 5hz clock (TS8280)
4 CN1_85
5 CN1_83
6 CN1_81
7 CN1_04 Toggle 5V to USB host headers (depends on baseboard)
8 CN1_77
9 CN1_73 Reset (default)
10 CN1_71 XUART 6 TX
11 CN1_69 XUART 6 RX
12 CN1_67 XUART 0 TXEN
13 CN1_65 XUART 1 TXEN
14 CN1_63 XUART 2 TXEN
15 CN2_97 CAN TX
16 CN2_99 CAN RX
17 CN2_64 SPI Chip Select 0
18 CN2_66 SPI Chip Select 2
19 CN2_68 SPI Chip Select 3
20 CN2_70
21 CN2_72
22 CN2_86 XUART 2 TX
23 CN1_99 MUXBUS BHEN
24 CN1_100 MUXBUS CSN
25 CN1_98 MUXBUS DIR
26 CN1_96 MUXBUS ALE
27 CN1_78 MUXBUS Data 8
28 CN1_76 MUXBUS Data 9

XUART 7 RX

29 CN1_74 MUXBUS Data 10

XUART 7 RX

30 CN1_72 MUXBUS Data 11
31 CN1_70 MUXBUS Data 12
32 CN1_68 MUXBUS Data 13
33 CN1_66 MUXBUS Data 14
34 CN1_64 MUXBUS Data 15
35 CN1_79 ADC SCL
36 CN2_78 XUART 0 TX
37 CN2_80 XUART 0 RX
38 CN2_82 XUART 1 TX
39 CN2_84 XUART 1 RX
40 CN2_96 XUART 4 RX
41 CN2_98 XUART 5 TX
42 CN2_100 XUART 5 RX
43 CN2_60
44 CN2_88 XUART 2 RX
45 CN2_90 XUART 3 TX
46 CN2_92 XUART 3 RX
47 CN2_94 XUART 4 TX
48 CN2_65 SPI Chip Select 1
49 CN2_62
50 CN2_54
51 CN2_56
52 CN2_58

Random Number Generator

The FPGA has a random number generator. On startup, ts7500ctl is called with the --setrng option to seed Linux's random number generator from the hardware random number generator. Without a good source of entropy, Linux's random number generator will start up in a very predictable state which is undesirable for the security of many cryptography protocols.

MUXBUS

Muxbus timing.png

All TS-SOCKET System-on-Modules have an external bus called the MUXBUS. The bus consists of 16 muxed address/data lines, ALE#, CS#, DIR, BHE#, and WAIT#. The MUXBUS provides a way for TS-SOCKET base board designers to include static memory devices, bridges to other industry standard buses such as PC/104, or an FPGA that implements custom features. Verilog modules ts8100.v and muxbusbridge.v are provided as examples of how to interface with the MUXBUS.

MUXBUS slaves can be 8 bit or 16 bit devices. Each SoM has an 8 bit MUXBUS address space which must be accessed with 8 bit reads and writes, and a 16 bit MUXBUS address space which must be accessed with 16 bit reads and writes. Software that works with the MUXBUS must know whether it is talking to an 8 bit or 16 bit slave device and act accordingly.

The bus cycle speed depends on the FPGA clock speed, which varies from one SoM to another. Thus, the MUXBUS behavior is specified in clock cycles. The bus cycle works as follows:

  • ALE# is asserted, and the address is driven on the bus lines. This condition is held for TP_ALE + 1 clock cycles.
  • ALE# is de-asserted while the address remains valid for TH_ADR + 1 clock cycles.
  • Data is driven on the bus lines (for a write) or the bus lines go high-Z (for a read) for TSU_DAT + 1 clock cycles.
  • CS# is asserted for TP_CS + 1 clock cycles.
  • CS# is de-asserted and data remains valid for TH_DAT + 1 clock cycles.

BHE# and DIR remain valid throughout the whole bus cycle. WAIT# is an input. The external device can assert the WAIT signal during the CS# pulse to extend it. The bus can work in 8 bit or 16 bit modes. In 8 bit mode, mux lines 8-15 are not used for data and BHE# is ignored. In 16 bit mode, byte reads and writes are still supported using BHE# and A0.

Each module will have a 16 bit external bus configuration register in its #Syscon.

Bus Config Register Bits Usage
bit 0 Bus enable (otherwise, pins are GPIO or reserved)
bits 2:1 TP_ALE
bits 4:3 TH_ADR
bits 6:5 TSU_DAT
bits 12:7 TP_CS [1]
bits 15:13 TH_DAT
  1. A TP_CS of 0x3f is not supported -- use a value from 0 to 62 (that's 0x00 to 0x3e).

IMPLEMENTATION TIMING NOTES:

On a MUXBUS write, all timing values are controlled by the bus config register. The slave device is permitted to latch data on either the leading edge or the trailing edge of the CS# pulse, or any time in between.

One a MUXBUS read, the MUXBUS latches data on the trailing edge of the CS# pulse. The slave device should begin driving the data bus in response to CS# assertion. Users should program TP_CS so that TSU_RD is at least 10ns plus any delays between the two boards. A conservative TP_CS setting is recommended, because an extra clock cycle here will not have a significant effect on net MUXBUS bandwidth.

The slave device must stop driving the data bus in response to CS# de-assertion. TH_RD must be at most 30ns.

The timing register must be set to 13.33 ns for the TS-4500.

WARNING: The WAIT line is not used on the TS-4500. On the TS-4500, the MUXBUS cycles must be configured to be slow enough for external devices.

Interrupts

This board does not bring out any CPU DIO directly, so to access any IRQs you would require an FPGA customization. There are 2 IRQs connected to the FPGA which are typically used for CAN or the XUART core. The XUARTs by default will poll at 100hz which will be acceptable for most applications accessing the UARTs so this IRQ may not be required. See the #FPGA Programming section for more details.

We include a userspace IRQ patch in our kernels. This allows you to receive interrupts from your applications where you would normally have to write a kernel driver. This works by creating a file for each interrupt in '/proc/irq/<irqnum>/irq'. The new irq file allows you to block on a read on the file until an interrupt fires.

The original patch is documented here.

This example below will work with any of our TS-Socket boards running Linux. This opens the IRQ number specified in the first argument and prints when it detects an IRQ.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/select.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
	char proc_irq[32];
	int ret, irqfd = 0;
	int buf; // Holds irq junk data
	fd_set fds;

	if(argc < 2) {
		printf("Usage: %s <irq number>\n", argv[0]);
		return 1;
	}

	snprintf(proc_irq, sizeof(proc_irq), "/proc/irq/%d/irq", atoi(argv[1]));
	irqfd = open(proc_irq, O_RDONLY| O_NONBLOCK, S_IREAD);

	if(irqfd == -1) {
		printf("Could not open IRQ %s\n", argv[1]);
		return 1;
	}
	
	while(1) {
		FD_SET(irqfd, &fds); //add the fd to the set
		// See if the IRQ has any data available to read
		ret = select(irqfd + 1, &fds, NULL, NULL, NULL);
		
		if(FD_ISSET(irqfd, &fds))
		{
			FD_CLR(irqfd, &fds);  //Remove the filedes from set
			printf("IRQ detected\n");
			
			// Clear the junk data in the IRQ file
			read(irqfd, &buf, sizeof(buf));
		}
		
		//Sleep, or do any other processing here
		usleep(10000);
	}
	
	return 0;
}

I2C

The I2C_SCL and I2C_SDA pins bring out the I2C bus from the CNS2132 CPU. We do have an example for connecting to the I2C bus that uses the temperature sensor used on some of this series. You can find the C example here.

Please refer to the CNS2132 user's guide, page 55, 144, and 312 for more information on this I2C bus.

SPI

This core is for high speed SPI with auto-CS#. Starts at offset 0x40 on the this series. Chip select #0 is typically used for onboard spiflash. Chip select #1 is used for offboard spiflash. The last 2 chip selects are always available on the Cavium series boards.

The SPI controller is an FPGA core which is accessed using spictl. The simplest method for communication is calling spictl through bash:

# Read 32 bytes from LUN1
spictl --lun=1 --readstream=32

# Write Hello (68:65:6c:6c:6f)
spictl --lun=1 --writestream=68:65:6c:6c:6f

Usage:

ts7500:~# spictl --help
Technologic Systems SPI controller manipulation.

General options:
-c | --clock=frequency    SPI clock frequency
-e | --edge=value         set clock edge (positive for > 0, negative for < 0)
-w | --writestream=data   write colon delimited hex octets to SPI
-d | --readwrite=data     write colon delimited hex octets to SPI while reading to stdout
-r | --readstream=bytes   read specified number of bytes from SPI to stdout
-o | --holdcs             don't de-assert CS# when done
-l | --lun=id             Talk to specified chip number
-s | --server=<port>      Daemonize and run as server listening on port
-p | --port=<host><:port> Talk to spictl server
hex octets are hexadecimal bytes. for example,
this command reads 32 bytes of CS#1 SPI flash from address 8192:
./spictl -l 1 -w 0B:00:20:00:00 -r 32

The spictl utility can also run as a TCP server which lets you easily access SPI in your application. To start the tcp server on port 7755:

spictl --server=7755

The data stream packet to a spictl server consists of opcodes and operands. Each opcode is one byte long and may encode part or all of the operand. Some opcodes specify that additional bytes of data follow to contain the remainder of the operands.

There are four opcodes encoded in the two msb of the opcode byte:

  • OPCODE 0 = CHIP SELECT
    • The chip number is encoded in the two LSB.
      • 00 = CS#0
      • 01 = CS#1
      • 10 = CS#2
      • 11 = CS#3
    • If Bit 5 is set, OPCODE = ASSERT CHIP SELECT.
    • Then If Bit 3 is set, Bit 2 is the new SPI edge to use (1 = positive edge, 0 = negative edge). Also, two additional bytes follow as operands. These two bytes are a big-endian encoded clock value. This value multiplied by 2048 is the SPI clock frequency to use. If Bit 5 is clear, OPCODE = DE-ASSERT CHIP SELECT
  • OPCODE 1 = READ
    • The number of bytes to read must be a power of two, encoded in the 6 lsb. These six bits represent the number to raise 2 to the power of to get the length. So,
      • 00_0000 = 1 byte
      • 00_0001 = 2 bytes
      • ...
      • 00_1100 = 4096 bytes
  • OPCODE 2 = WRITE
    • The number of bytes to write is encoded in the same manner as for a READ opcode. After the opcode byte, the number of bytes to write follows as the operands.
  • OPCODE 3 = READWRITE
    • This opcode encodes identically as the WRITE opcode. However it specifies that bytes are to be READ as well as written.

You can also use the spictl --server=<port> and run a second invokation of spictl with --port=<port> to have the second instance act as a client to the server. You can then use tcpdump to see the exact tcp packets being sent back and forth for various operations.

The table below is the register map for the SPI in the FPGA:

Offset Access Bit(s) Description
0x40 Read Only 15 SPI MISO state
Read/Write 14 SPI CLK state
Read/Write 13:10 Speed - 0 (highest), 1 (1/2 speed), 2 (1/4 speed)...
Read/Write 9:8 LUN (0-3 representing the 4 chip selects)
Read/Write 7 CS (1 - CS# is asserted)
N/A 6:1 Reserved
Read/Write 0 Speed
0x42 Read Only 15:0 Previous SPI read data from last write
0x44 N/A 15:0 Reserved
0x46 N/A 15:0 Reserved
0x48 Read/Write 15:0 SPI read/write with CS# to stay asserted
0x4a Read Only 15:0 SPI pipelined read with CS# to stay asserted
0x4c Read/Write 15:0 SPI Read/Write with CS# to deassert post-op
0x4e N/A 15:0 Reserved

The SPI clk state register should be set when CS# is deasserted. Value 0 makes SPI rising edge (CPOL=0), 1 is falling edge (CPOL=1). This only applies to speed >= 1. For speed == 0, SPI clock polarity/skew must be set from the PLL phase adjust registers in the syscon block.

Where the base clock is 75Mhz (extended temp alters this to 50Mhz), speed settings break down as follows:

 0 - 75Mhz (/1)
 1 - 37.5Mhz (/2)
 2 - 18.75Mhz (/4)
 3 - 12.5Mhz (/6)
 4 - 9.375Mhz (/8)
 5 - 7.5Mhz (/10)
 6 - 6.25Mhz (/12)
 7 - 5.36Mhz (/14)
 8 - 4.68Mhz (/16)
 9 - 4.17Mhz (/18)
 ...
 15 - 2.5Mhz (/30)
 ... 
 19 - 1.97MHz (/38)
 ...
 31 - 1.21MHz (/62)

Bits 10-15 were not present on TS-75XX FPGA prior to rev 4. On those TS-75XX's, SPI speed was hardcoded to 75Mhz and 75Mhz only.

The pipelined read register is for read bursts and will automatically start a subsequent SPI read upon completion of the requested SPI read. Reading from this register infers that another read will shortly follow and allows this SPI controller "a head start" on the next read for optimum read performance. This register should be accessed as long as there will be at least one more SPI read with CS# asserted to take place. This register is an appropriate target address for SBUS burst reads.

External Reset

Driving the external reset pin (DIO 9) low will reset the CPU by default. You can disable this functionality by running:

ts7500ctl --resetswitchoff

Temperature Sensor

There is an onboard LM73 temperature sensor that is connected over #I2C. You can easily interface with this by calling ts7500ctl:

# ts7500ctl --gettemp
tempsensor_ok=1
temperature=29.000

External Interfaces

TS-Socket

The TS-SOCKET System-on-Modules (SoMs) all use two high density 100 pin connectors for power and all I/O. These follow a common pinout for various external interfaces so new modules can be dropped in to lower power consumption or use a more powerful processor. The male connector is on the baseboard, and the female connector is on the SoM. You can find the datasheet for the baseboard's male connector here. This can be ordered from the TS-Socket SoM product page as CN-TSSOCKET-M-10 for a 10 pack, or CN-TSSOCKET-M-100 for 100 pieces, or from the vendor of your choice, the part is an FCI "61083-102402LF".

TS-Socket

We have an Eaglecad library available for developing a custom baseboard here. We also provide the entire PCB design for the TS-8200 baseboard here which you can modify for your own design.

In our schematics and our table layout below, we refer to pin 1 from the male connector on the baseboard.

Example Baseboard

CN1 CN2
Name Pin Pin Name
FPGA_JTAG_TMS [1] 1 2 #EXT_RESET [2]
FPGA_JTAG_TCK [1] 3 C 4 DIO_07 [3]
FPGA_JTAG_TDO [1] 5 N 6 SDCARD_D2 [4]
FPGA_JTAG_TDI [1] 7 1 8 SDCARD_D3 [4]
OFF_BD_RESET# [5] 9 10 SDCARD_CMD [4]
Reserved 11 12 SDCARD_3.3V [4]
Reserved 13 C 14 SDCARD_CLK [4]
POWER [6] 15 N 16 POWER [6]
Reserved 17 1 18 SDCARD_D0 [4]
Reserved 19 20 SDCARD_D1 [4]
Reserved 21 22 Reserved
Reserved 23 C 24 Reserved
Reserved 25 N 26 Reserved
Reserved 27 1 28 Reserved
POWER [6] 29 30 Reserved
Reserved 31 32 Reserved
Reserved 33 C 34 Reserved
Reserved 35 N 36 V_BAT [7]
Reserved 37 1 38 Reserved
Reserved 39 40 Reserved
Reserved 41 42 Reserved
Reserved 43 C 44 Reserved
Reserved 45 N 46 Reserved
POWER [6] 47 1 48 Reserved
Reserved 49 50 Reserved
Reserved 51 52 Reserved
Reserved 53 C 54 Reserved
Reserved 55 N 56 Reserved
Reserved 57 1 58 Reserved
Reserved 59 60 Reserved
Reserved 61 62 Ground
DIO_14 63 C 64 DIO_34 / AD_15
DIO_13 65 N 66 DIO_33 / AD_14
DIO_12 67 1 68 DIO_32 / AD_13
DIO_11 69 70 DIO_31 / AD_12
DIO_10 71 72 DIO_30 / AD_11
DIO_09 73 C 74 DIO_29 / AD_10
Ground 75 N 76 DIO_28 / AD_09
DIO_08 77 1 78 DIO_27 / AD_08
DIO_07 79 80 NAND_D7 / AD_07
DIO_06 81 82 NAND_D6 / AD_06
DIO_05 83 C 84 NAND_D5 / AD_05
DIO_04 85 N 86 NAND_D4 / AD_04
DIO_03 87 1 88 NAND_D3 / AD_03
DIO_02 89 90 NAND_D2 / AD_02
DIO_01 91 92 NAND_D1 / AD_01
DIO_00 93 C 94 NAND_D0 / AD_00
Ground 95 N 96 DIO_26 / BUS_ALE#
Reserved 97 1 98 DIO_25 / BUS_DIR
DIO_23 / BUS_BHE# 99 100 DIO_24 / BUS_CS#
Name Pin Pin Name
ETH_RX+ 1 2 ETH_LEFT_LED
ETH_RX- 3 C 4 ETH_RIGHT_LED
ETH_CT 5 N 6 RED_LED#
ETH_TX+ 7 2 8 GREEN_LED#
ETH_TX- 9 10 Reserved
ETH_CT 11 12 Reserved
3.3V [8] 13 C 14 Reserved
Ground 15 N 16 Reserved
Reserved 17 2 18 Reserved
Reserved 19 20 Reserved
Ground 21 22 Reserved
DEV_USB_M 23 C 24 Reserved
DEV_USB_P 25 N 26 Reserved
Ground 27 2 28 TWI_CLK
HOST_USB_M 29 30 TWI_DAT
HOST_USB_P 31 32 Reserved
CPU_CORE 33 C 34 Reserved
HOSTB_USB_M 35 N 36 Reserved
HOSTB_USB_P 37 2 38 Reserved
3.3V [8] 39 40 Reserved
Reserved 41 42 Reserved
Reserved 43 C 44 CPU_JTAG_TMS
Ground 45 N 46 CPU_JTAG_TCK
Reserved 47 2 48 CPU_JTAG_TDI
Reserved 49 50 CPU_JTAG_TDO
Ground 51 52 Reserved
Reserved 53 C 54 DIO_50
Reserved 55 N 56 DIO_51
1.8V 57 2 58 DIO_52
Reserved 59 60 DIO_43
Reserved 61 62 DIO_49
1.2V 63 C 64 DIO_17
DIO_48 65 N 66 DIO_18
SPI_MOSI 67 2 68 DIO_19
SPI_MISO 69 70 DIO_20
SPI_CLK 71 72 DIO_21
Ground 73 C 74 Reserved
Reserved 75 N 76 Reserved
Reserved 77 2 78 DIO_36 / XUART0_TXD
3.3V [8] 79 80 DIO_37 / UART0_RXD
Reserved 81 82 DIO_38 / UART1_TXD
Reserved 83 C 84 DIO_39 / UART1_RXD
Reserved 85 N 86 DIO_22 / UART2_TXD
Reserved 87 2 88 DIO_44 / UART2_RXD
Reserved 89 90 DIO_45 / UART3_TXD
Reserved 91 92 DIO_46 / UART3_RXD
DEBUG_TXD 93 C 94 DIO_47 / UART4_TXD
DEBUG_RXD 95 N 96 DIO_40 / UART4_RXD
DIO_15 / CAN_TXD 97 2 98 DIO_41 / UART5_TXD
DIO_16 / CAN_RXD 99 100 DIO_42 / UART5_RXD
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The FPGA JTAG pins are not recommended for use and are not supported. See the #FPGA Programming section for the recommended method to reprogram the FPGA.
  2. EXT_RESET# is an input used to reboot the CPU. Do not drive active high, use open drain.
  3. On our baseboard designs this pin is typically used to toggle power to the USB 5V rail (EN_USB_5V).
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 For more information on working with SD cards see the #SD section. These pins for the SD controller are also the same pins brought out on the MicroSD socket so they cannot both be used at the same time.
  5. The off board reset is driven low to reset all peripherals.
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Each pin on this connector is only rated for 500mA so every POWER pin should be connected to a 5V source.
  7. Optionally you can connect a 3.3V battery to this pin to keep the RTC alive between reboots and while the 5V rail is down.
  8. 8.0 8.1 8.2 The System-on-Module regulates a 3.3V rail which can source up to 300mA by the baseboard.

Errata

Ethernet driver can cause kernel delays

Synopsis 160ms Delay with ETH0 Disconnected
Severity Minor
Class Kernel Bug
Affected All TS-75XX/TS-4500 Boards
Status Workarounds available

Description:

The Cavium STR8100 NIC driver was programmed with 160ms delays when Ethernet is physically disconnected (see function static void internal_phy_patch_check(int init) of .../drivers/net/str8100/star_nic.c). This causes delayed responses in real-time applications such as canctl. When Ethernet is physically connected, the issue is nonexistent.

Workaround:

TS-75XX/TS-4500 users wanting to utilize real-time responses without Ethernet plugged in will need to either:

1. Bring the eth0 interface down with the command:

ifconfig eth0 down

2. Recompile the kernel without the Ethernet driver from Cavium (.../drivers/net/str8100/star_nic.c)

MUXBUS access can cause TS-4500 to hang

Synopsis MUXBUS access on TS-4500 can hang system
Severity Minor
Class FPGA bug
Affected TS-4500 FPGA revision 4 and below.
Status Workarounds available

Description:

The TS-4500 default FPGA load revision 4 and lower does not include MUXBUS mwindow. However if the MUXBUS mwindow address range is probed it will cause the SBUS to hang, causing the WDT to timeout and fire, rebooting the board.

Workaround:

Since the TS-4500 default FPGA load does not include the MUXBUS, the opencore FPGA load marked with "SOCKETmemwindow" must be used to provide MUXBUS support. On affected FPGA revs the MUXBUS range must not be probed. On revision 5 and above these ranges will return 0x0 on every access. See TS-4500#FPGA_Bitstreams for more information on using the opencore bitstreams.

Cavium PHY Ethernet Link Loss

Synopsis Link drop with certain cable lengths/switches on 100Mb/s networks
Severity Normal
Class Kernel Bug
Affected All TS-75XX/TS-4500 Boards
Status Workarounds available

Description:

The Cavium STR8100 integrated PHY in some circumstances can drop connection to the network. You can see this in dmesg as:

 star_nic_shutdown: stoping patch check.

The issue appears to correspond to the length of cable used as well as the network device connected to the board.

Workaround:

You can force the cavium PHY to 10MB/s which drastically improves reliability, and in most cases eliminates the issue. This needs to be run each time the interface is brought back up. If link is lost you would need to reset the interface (ifconfig eth0 up && ifconfig eth0 down) and run the devmem command again.

# From the initrd:
devmem 0x70000004 32 0x43075

# From Debian
/initrd/bin/busybox devmem 0x70000004 32 0x43075

This will disable the link speed auto-negotiation and force the PHY to communicate at 10Mb/s.

Product Notes

FCC Advisory

This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly (that is, in strict accordance with the manufacturer's instructions), may cause interference to radio and television reception. It has been type tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device in accordance with the specifications in Part 15 of FCC Rules, which are designed to provide reasonable protection against such interference when operated in a commercial environment. Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause interference, in which case the owner will be required to correct the interference at his own expense.

If this equipment does cause interference, which can be determined by turning the unit on and off, the user is encouraged to try the following measures to correct the interference:

Reorient the receiving antenna. Relocate the unit with respect to the receiver. Plug the unit into a different outlet so that the unit and receiver are on different branch circuits. Ensure that mounting screws and connector attachment screws are tightly secured. Ensure that good quality, shielded, and grounded cables are used for all data communications. If necessary, the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio/television technician for additional suggestions. The following booklets prepared by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may also prove helpful:

How to Identify and Resolve Radio-TV Interference Problems (Stock No. 004-000-000345-4) Interface Handbook (Stock No. 004-000-004505-7) These booklets may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402.

Limited Warranty

See our Terms and Conditions for more details.