Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

[Bruce_Leonard]

Hi all,

We're designing a new product and we want to put a CF card in it.  We're 
thinking the easiest way to do that is to put in a PCI-CF bridge and we 
would like to use the TI1520 because it's industrial rated which we need. 
We can get the parts but TI is refusing to give us any support because 
they're devoting 100% of their time to dealing with the Vista release. I'm 
curious if anyone has ever successfully gotten this part to work in linux. 
 I found it listed in pci_ids.h, but that doesn't mean it's actually 
used/working.  I'm not looking for a detailed explination right now, we're 
just trying to gage if this part would be a couple of weeks of work or a 
couple of months.  Thanks for any info.

See 'ya!

Bruce

Re: Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

[Frank Bodammer]

On Thursday 01 March 2007 02:35, Bruce_Leonard@selinc.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> We're designing a new product and we want to put a CF card in it.  We're
> thinking the easiest way to do that is to put in a PCI-CF bridge and we
> would like to use the TI1520 because it's industrial rated which we need.
> We can get the parts but TI is refusing to give us any support because
> they're devoting 100% of their time to dealing with the Vista release. I'm
> curious if anyone has ever successfully gotten this part to work in linux.
>  I found it listed in pci_ids.h, but that doesn't mean it's actually
> used/working.  I'm not looking for a detailed explination right now, we're
> just trying to gage if this part would be a couple of weeks of work or a
> couple of months.  Thanks for any info.

I got a TI  cardbus controller PCI1520IPDV working in a embedded PPC 
system with little modifications to kernel 2.4.25, but i didn't found a common  
configuration for the I/O-space that works for all type of cards (cardbus and  
pcmcia). I tested some pcmcia cards, like WLAN, Ethernet, pcmcia harddisk 
and CF-Adapter with a different kernel configuration as for cardbus cards. 

Frank

Re: Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

[Ben Warren]

Bruce,
--- Bruce_Leonard@selinc.com wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> We're designing a new product and we want to put a
> CF card in it.  We're 
> thinking the easiest way to do that is to put in a
> PCI-CF bridge and we 
> would like to use the TI1520 because it's industrial
> rated which we need. 
> We can get the parts but TI is refusing to give us
> any support because 
> they're devoting 100% of their time to dealing with
> the Vista release. I'm 
> curious if anyone has ever successfully gotten this
> part to work in linux. 
>  I found it listed in pci_ids.h, but that doesn't
> mean it's actually 
> used/working.  I'm not looking for a detailed
> explination right now, we're 
> just trying to gage if this part would be a couple
> of weeks of work or a 
> couple of months.  Thanks for any info.

If you don't need hot-plugging and happen to be using
either a Freescale PowerQUICCx or IBM/AMCC 4xx chip,
you might consider connecting directly to the local
bus and operating in TrueIDE mode.  This has
limitations, but has been done many times.

regards,
Ben

Re: Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

[Bruce_Leonard]

Ben,

Ben Warren <bwarren@qstreams.com> wrote on 03/01/2007 04:00:27 AM:

> Bruce,
> --- Bruce_Leonard@selinc.com wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > We're designing a new product and we want to put a
> > CF card in it.  We're 
> 
> If you don't need hot-plugging and happen to be using
> either a Freescale PowerQUICCx or IBM/AMCC 4xx chip,
> you might consider connecting directly to the local
> bus and operating in TrueIDE mode.  This has
> limitations, but has been done many times.
> 
> regards,
> Ben

Thanks for the feedback.  We've considered doing that.  We're using a 
MPC8347 and have FS's 8349ITX ref design which is where we got the idea of 
using the local bus.  But digging into our requirements more we found that 
we want to support Compact Flash + cards in addition to Compact Flash 
Storage cards.  Also, in the future, we'll probably want to support more 
than one card at a time.  That's why we decided a PCI-CF bridge with two 
slots would be a better solution.

A related question (since I'm new to this PCMCIA/CardBus/Compact Flash 
world): what is a yenta-compatible device?  I know it's some how tied up 
in all of this, but googling it doesn't give me any usefull results.  Or 
is this question/thread better asked on the linux-pcmcia list?

Take care and stay safe.

bruce

Re: Kernel support for the TI1520 PCI-CardBus bridge?

[Bruce_Leonard]

Hi Frank,

linuxppc-embedded-bounces+brucle=selinc.com@ozlabs.org wrote on 03/01/2007 
02:01:19 AM:

> On Thursday 01 March 2007 02:35, Bruce_Leonard@selinc.com wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > We're designing a new product and we want to put a CF card in it. 
We're
> 
> I got a TI  cardbus controller PCI1520IPDV working in a embedded PPC 
> system with little modifications to kernel 2.4.25, but i didn't 
> found a common 
> configuration for the I/O-space that works for all type of cards 
> (cardbus and 
> pcmcia). I tested some pcmcia cards, like WLAN, Ethernet, pcmcia 
harddisk 
> and CF-Adapter with a different kernel configuration as for cardbus 
cards. 
> 
> Frank
> _______________________________________________
> Linuxppc-embedded mailing list
> Linuxppc-embedded@ozlabs.org
> https://ozlabs.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxppc-embedded

Thanks for the reply.  So it sounds like if you got it working in 2.4.25, 
there's probably better support in the current kernel.  How much work did 
you have to do?  You say 'little modifications'.  Was it a few hours, 
days, or weeks?  Based on what I've found so far (and my admittedly naive 
understanding of pcmcia and the kernel), it looks like this should almost 
be plug and play.  Turn on the the yenta pcmcia driver and tell it to look 
for TI parts.  The TI1520 is alredy listed in pci_ids.h so it may be that 
it'll just work.  We're just looking for a warm fuzzy before we commit to 
this part since we're getting no help from TI on it.  And if we can't find 
a warm fuzzy will look at something else.  Thanks again.

Take care and stay safe.

bruce