TS-7200

TS-7200

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Cirrus Logic EP9302
CPU User Guide

Overview

The TS-7200 is a compact, full-featured Single Board Computer (SBC) based upon the Cirrus EP9302 ARM9 CPU, which provides a standard set of on-board peripherals.

Getting Started

A Linux PC is recommended for development. For developers who use Windows, virtualized Linux using VMWare or similar are recommended in order to make the full power of Linux available. The developer will need to be comfortable with Linux anyway in order to work with embedded Linux on the target platform. The main reasons that Linux is useful are:

• Linux filesystems on the microSD card can be accessed on the PC.
• More ARM cross-compilers are available.
• If recovery is needed, a bootable medium can be written.
• A network filesystem can be served.
• Builds such as Linux kernel, buildroot, yocto, distro-seed will not work from WSL1/2 on a case insensitive filesystem.

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.

With the TS-7200 there is a terminal block power connector which is removable to expose 2 pins you can also use to supply power.

Get a Console

The default console is available on the DB9 port using the a 115200 baud, 8n1 connection with no flow control. You also must have JP2 in place in order to enable the console out. You can redirect console to COM2 by enabling JP4.

Use a null modem cable to connect the ARM system to your workstation. If you do not have a COM port on your system (as many newer systems do not), you can find a USB serial adapter that will bring out RS232.

Console from Linux

There are many serial clients for Linux, but 3 simple ones would be picocom, screen, and minicom. These examples assume that your COM device is /dev/ttyUSB0 (common for USB adapters), but replace them with the COM device on your workstation.

Linux has a few applications capable of connecting to the board over serial. You can use any of these clients that may be installed or available in your workstation's package manager:

Picocom is a very small and simple client.

picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

Screen is a terminal multiplexer which happens to have serial support.

screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

Or a very commonly used client is minicom which is quite powerful:

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.

You can also telnet to the board with the default network configuration which will provide telnet.

Jumpers

Jumper	Description	Address	Bit	Description
JP1	Boot to serial port COM1.	N/A
JP2	Enable serial console (COM1 Default)	0x1080_000	0	On=1
JP3	Write enable flash.	0x1080_000	1	On=1
JP4	Redirects console to COM2 (with JP2 on)	0x1080_000	3	On=0
JP5	Enables Testing	0x1080_000	4	On=0
JP6	User Configurable	0x2280_000	0	On=1

Backup / Restore

Compact Flash

If backing up on a separate workstation, keep in mind windows does not have direct block device support needed to write these images. You will also need to determine the CF card device. You can usually find this in the output of 'dmesg' after inserting the CF card and you will typically see something like '/dev/sdb' as the block device and '/dev/sdb1' for the first partition. On some newer kernels you will see '/dev/mmcblk0' as the block device and '/dev/mmcblkop1' for the first partition. For these examples I will use the '/dev/mmcblk0' format.

If you are backing up directly on the board you will likely need to use some kind of offboard storage like a thumbdrive or external hard drive.

You can find the latest CF card image here which will contain the Debian OS. Make sure you decompress the image before writing.

Backup

Entire SD card

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/path/to/backup.dd bs=32k

Kernel

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

Initrd

dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p3 of=/path/to/initrd bs=32k

Restore

Entire SD card

dd if=/path/to/backup.dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=32k

Kernel

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

Initrd

dd if=/initrd bs=32k of=/dev/mmcblk0p3

eCos RedBoot

RedBoot is a feature rich boot-ROM monitor, that allows manipulation of the on-board flash, JFFS and YAFFS images, loading and execution of a kernel or executable from either tftp (trivial ftp), http or flash, and gdb debugging stubs. From RedBoot, one can load and execute any standalone binary. Most commonly, a Linux kernel binary is used. One can also write applications within the eCos environment and load them with RedBoot. Please refer to Sourceware for more information on programming for eCos.

By default, a pre-existing RedBoot script is executed on initialization time, if not interrupted by the user within one second. The default script instructs RedBoot to load the Linux kernel from the flash, and instructs the Linux kernel to use the JFFS/YAFFS image on the flash chip for its root file system. One can view the RedBoot defaults for the board, as well as the default script, by entering “fconfig -l” at the RedBoot command prompt (Ctrl+C within one second after power up).

The defaults can be changed by simply entering “fconfig” at the RedBoot prompt and answering the prompts. A final chance to write or discard the changes to the board will be given by RedBoot. Also, the main RedBoot commands can be viewed by entering “help” at the prompt, and further information about a single command can be viewed by typing “help <command name>”.

Loading an Executing a Kernel

RedBoot can load a kernel or executable via the serial console, a tftp server, http server, or directly from flash. The Linux kernel must be loaded into memory address 0x00218000.

Flash

Loading the kernel from flash is done automatically by RedBoot in the default script with the following command:

fis load zimage -b 0x00218000

HTTP

Prior to loading a new kernel into RebBoot using HTTP, make sure you have configured RedBoot with a network configuration that can reach the network. You may use the RedBoot "fconfig" command to set network parameters. Get to the RedBoot prompt by hitting Ctrl+C key immediately after power on and type the following command:

load -v -r -b 0x00218000 -m http -h <http sever IP> <kernel name>

For example:

load -v -r -b 0x00218000 -m http -h 67.40.67.44 /ftp/ts7kv/vmlinuxts7200ts9.bin

TFTP

To load a kernel from a simple TFTP server, the following command is needed:

load -r -b 0x00218000 -h <tftp server IP> <kernel name>

For example:

load –b 0x00218000 –h 192.168.0.1 vmlinux

Executing a loaded kernel

Now that a kernel has been loaded into memory, it can be executed. This is accomplished with the following command:

exec -c "<kernel parameters>"

For example:

exec -c "console=ttyAM0,115200 ip=dhcp root=/dev/mtdblock1"

The “exec” command executes the loaded kernel image, passing to the kernel the arguments specified via the “-c” switch. In the previous example, kernel messages are sent out on the first serial port (note that ttyAM0 is used instead of the familiar ttyS0) at 115200 baud and the root file-system is on the first mtdblock of the flash chip.

On the TS-7200 model, to load the root file system from the Compact Flash card, the following command should be used instead:

exec -c “console=ttyAM0,115200 ip=dhcp root=/dev/hda1”

To load from an NFS root:

exec -c “console=ttyAM0,115200 ip=dhcp nfsroot=<IP of NFS server>:</path/to/NFSROOT>

Operating Systems

On the compact flash we have enough room to provide Debian. This provides a very mature OS with many packages, but does require significantly more space. For the onboard flash we have developed TS-Linux which requires very little space while still providing a powerful system.

Debian

Our boards boot a standard Debian installation which provides a large amount of software that you can install with relatively little effort. See the Debian page for more general information on installing/removing software, and further documentation.

For this series we provide the Debian versions Woody, Sarge, Etch and Lenny. The EP9302 supports both OABI and EABI, so future Debian distributions may be run on the SBC, but will not be supported. We do provide distributions available as archives separate from the images. You can find them on this folder on the ftp. You will need a linux system to extract it:

# Replace the mmcblk0p4 device with your card
# on your workstation
mount /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/sd/
cd /mnt/sd/
tar --numeric-owner -xvf /path/to/debian-lenny-arm-latest.tar.gz
cd ../
umount /mnt/sd/

You can download the different Debian minimal installs for x86 from here and install it on a PC or virtual machine to become more familiar with a debian environment or even specific distribution.

TS-Linux

This is our minimalistic Linux system based off of busybox which provides a very simple OS to run your application.

Network Configuration

The main utilities for network configuration under Linux are:

• ifconfig: prints network settings and configures ethernet interfaces
• ifup: turns given network interface up
• ifdown: turns given network interface down

Entering “ifconfig” shows the current ethernet settings. These utilities require a network device as parameter. On Linux, the ethernet devices are generally named eth0, eth1, etc. Therefore, the command “ifup eth0” or “ifconfig eth0 up” brings up the on-board ethernet interface on TS-72XX SBCs.

To configure the network, you need to manage the proper configuration files. On TS-Linux systems, these files are located in the “/etc/sysconfig/” directory. By default, Linux systems on TS-72XX boards are configured to assign the IP 192.168.0.50 to the on-board ethernet interface.

To configure the network when booting to the TS-Linux image on the flash chip, the files in "/etc/sysconfig/" must be edited. Network interfaces are configured on a file per interface basis. The first Ethernet device, eth0, is controlled by the file /etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-eth0". An example of "ifcfg-eth0" is shown below:

 DEVICE=eth0 #Name of ethernet interface
 IPADDR=192.168.0.50 #IP address of this ethernet interface
 NETMASK=255.255.255.0 #Used with NETWORK to determine local IPs
 NETWORK=192.168.0.0 #Used with NETMASK to determine local IPs
 BROADCAST=192.168.0.255 #Broadcast IP for system wide messages
 BOOTPROTO=static #Static IP (change "static" to “DHCP”)
 ENABLE=yes #Load device on boot

The TCP/IP network settings are configured in the file '/etc/sysconfig/network_cfg':

 NETWORKING=yes #Enable networking on startup
 GATEWAY="192.168.0.1" #Gateway for internet access
 GW_DEV=eth0 #Default gateway
 HOSTNAME=ts7200 #Host name of this computer
 BOOTPROTO=no
 FORWARD_IPV4=no
 DEFRAG_IPV4=no

The TCP/IP name resolution server is configured in '/etc/resolv.conf':

 nameserver 192.168.0.1 #Name server for domain name lookups

Those lines starting with a # symbol are comments. As the above example shows, eth0 is given the static address of 192.168.0.50. If one wishes eth0 to obtain its IP from a DHCP server, then change the line BOOTPROTO=static to BOOTPROTO=dhcp. In order to test the default network settings with TS-Linux, open a web browser and use the embedded Apache web server by entering the default IP 192.168.0.50, or simple "ping" or "telnet" to 192.168.0.50.

Services

TS-Linux includes solutions for the main network services, including Telnet, HTTP, FTP, SSH, NFS and Mail. Some of these services can be started, restarted or stopped by management scripts located at the "/etc/init.d" directory. For example, the following command will restart the apache server:

/etc/init.d/apache restart

Also, the "/etc/inet.conf" file is used to configure the initialization and parameters of other services.

NetBSD

NetBSD is a very powerful open operating system which runs on everything including your toaster.

Initial NetBSD support for the TS-7200 was committed to the NetBSD -current CVS repository on December 24, 2004 as a subconfiguration of the NetBSD/evbarm port. Current supported peripherals are described on the NetBSD/evbarm webpage. As a kernel, the most notable hardware support difference between the current NetBSD kernel and the Linux 2.4.26 kernel currently shipping by default with the TS-7200 is that NetBSD has an isabus driver that allows PC/104 cards to be more fully utilized on the TS-7200. Getting generic ISA bus drivers to work with Linux can be very difficult due to the x86 style ISA assumptions throughout the kernel. Linux right now does have something NetBSD does not and that is support for using the onboard flash as a filesystem (NetBSD requires the CF to boot). NetBSD has support for the watchdog timer on the TS-7200 and can also boot very easily to a USB thumb drive or mass storage device. Linux currently has no watchdog driver and has to use a very technical incantation involving an initrd and a pivot_root to boot USB drives. Kernel bootup time is slightly longer on NetBSD than Linux, but can be improved by disabling certain drivers and certain (overly conservative) delays.

Installing NetBSD

All TS-7200's come pre-installed with Linux since Linux is Technologic System's most marketable platform. Installing NetBSD is not difficult and can be done from the RedBoot ROM monitor completely from the internet. Before you start, you'll want to make sure you have at least version 1.04 of the TS-BOOTROM firmware installed. Also, there is currently no gzimg for the 16MB onboard flash versions of the TS-7200. Send a message to joff-AT-embeddedARM.com if you have a 16MB flash unit you would like to try NetBSD on. The first thing you'll want to do is use the RedBoot command fconfig to set your IP address and default gateway so that you can access the internet. After that, you need to load the 5MB install kernel from the internet using the command:

load -v -r -b 0x00200000 -h 67.40.67.44 -m http /ftp/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7200-netbsd/netbsd-TS7200_INSTALL.bin

Note that this may take some time as eCos/RedBoot is not particularly speedy at downloading via HTTP. You may alternatively download the file to a TFTP or HTTP server on your local network which may speed things up. After successfully downloading the install image to RAM, type go to start the kernel and menu driven installation program. The NetBSD installation program will take you through installing NetBSD to your CompactFlash card or USB thumb drive. Just installing the minimal number of sets will require a 128MB CF, and although you can run the full OS with compilers in a 256MB CF, you need 512MB to install it because of required temporary storage of the downloaded set tarballs. When the time comes to ask for the installation medium, choose "FTP" and accept the default parameters since the installation kernel you downloaded from Technologic Systems will default to the correct FTP location (also at Technologic Systems).

After the OS has been installed to the CF, you need to write a kernel to the onboard flash and tell RedBoot to boot it. A kernel that boots to CF is downloadable via HTTP and can be written using the following sequence of commands:

• Load NetBSD gzimg from HTTP into RAM

load -v -r -b 0x00200000 -h 67.40.67.44 -m http /ftp/ts-arm-sbc/ts-7200-netbsd/gzimg_TS7200_wd0_flash_0x60660000

• To delete flashed Linux kernel

fis delete vmlinux

• Puts the gzimg into the RedBoot FIS

fis create -b 0x00200000 -l 0x160000 -f 0x60660000 netbsd.gz

Once the gzimg image has been written to flash, you can modify your RedBoot bootscript to issue the command go 0x60660000 which will then start NetBSD on your TS-7200

Using NetBSD

NetBSD has a separate sub-project dubbed pkgsrc that handles package management and building of the several thousand other open-source projects. This is somewhat akin to RedHat's RPM or Debian's dpkg/apt-get facilities. Currently, ftp.netbsd.org only has pre-built binary packages for evbarm from the NetBSD-1.6 release of pkgsrc. You can use these by setting the PKG_PATH environment variable to ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/1.6/evbarm/All then running pkg_add, e.g. pkg_add -v perl. Package dependencies are downloaded and installed automatically providing functionality similar to Debian's apt-get. Note, however, the typical usage of the NetBSD pkgsrc framework is downloading/extracting the pkgsrc framework tarball into /usr/pkgsrc and building each package right on the hardware that will run it. This is a little bit more involved on the TS-7200 since one rarely has the patience to compile completely on a 200Mhz ARM. Instead, the recommended way would be to use the distcc compiler to distribute the compiling to a higher power workstation running the distccd daemon with the ARM netbsd cross toolchain across the network. This way, the TS-7200 is still running the build, but the bulk of the CPU-intensive parts are offloaded to another machine.

Besides pkgsrc, another notable difference is in the NetBSD startup configuration. Linux distributions vary, but they typically use the SysV initialization scheme with numbered runlevels 1-6, startup scripts in /etc/init.d/* and specially named symlinks in /etc/init.d/rc##.d directories corresponding to each runlevel. NetBSD uses a simplified startup configuration where single lines of the form sendmail=YES or inetd=NO are appended to the /etc/rc.conf file. System defaults are sourced first from /etc/defaults/rc.conf and the user may open this file for finding all the available modifiable configuration knobs and then override them with entries in /etc/rc.conf.

Network interfaces are also slightly different in NetBSD. Instead of each ethernet like device being named eth0, eth1, eth2, etc., each device is named according to the actual device. On the TS-7200, the on-board ethernet is named "epe0", short for EP93xx Ethernet. To set IP addresses, the ifconfig command is available with semantics similar to those in Linux. Alternatively, you may have the system set the device up at bootup by appending a line of the form ifconfig_epe0="192.168.0.50" to the /etc/rc.conf file. To use DHCP, append a line dhclient=YES to /etc/rc.conf. The default route is set with a line in /etc/rc.conf of the form defaultroute="192.168.0.1".

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 with Debian. For TS-Linux you will have to cross compile off the board.

Cross Compiling

We have prepared a version of Eclipse to work with the board which is available here. There are instructions provided with the archive, and Eclipse has many tutorials for working with it available.

For development from a Linux workstation you will want to use the toolchain here. Extract it to the root of your filesystem, and run that version of gcc to prepare the ARM binary.

To Compile:

[user@localhost]$ /usr/local/arm-oabi-toolchain/arm-unknown-linux-gnu/bin/arm-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc hello.c -o hello
[user@localhost]$ file hello
hello: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, not stripped

There are many ways to transfer the compiled binaries to the board. Using a network filesystem such as sshfs or NFS will be the simplest to use if you are frequently updating data, but will require more setup. See your linux distribution's manual for more details.

The simplest method to set up is using ssh/sftp from Debian. You can use winscp if from windows, or scp from linux. Make sure you set a password from debian for root. Otherwise the ssh server will deny connections. From winscp, enter the ip address of the SBC, the root username, and the password you have set. This will provide you with an explorer window you can drag files into. For TS-Linux, you can set up an NFS share or transfer files using a USB drive.

For scp in linux, run:

#replace with your app name and your SBC IP address
scp hello root@192.168.0.50:/root/

After transferring the file to the board, execute it:

ts7200:~# ./hello 
Hello world!

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.