[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[Dave Littell]

Hi all,

I'm working on an AMCC PPC440EPx platform that is similar to the AMCC
Sequoia under U-Boot 1.3.1.  I've copied the Sequoia board and
configuration as a starting point, but I've run into a problem with the
size of the flash-based portion of U-Boot.  I've added code to
initdram() that results in the addition of 3-4 dozen assembly
instructions.  Now the board hangs after a very few tftp (or even ping)
commands.  However, if I remove the code I added, there's no problem
with tftp, etc.  I've narrowed it down to the point where I can make the
difference between a working and non-working load by adding just a few
instructions to initdram().  Some boundary or limit is being crossed
somewhere...

I'm sure I've overrun something somewhere but I'm afraid I'm not
literate enough in the magic of the .lds file (which is unmodified from
the Sequoia platform) to understand what adding so few instructions to
the flash-based portion of U-boot might have broken.

I've searched the FAQ and mailing list archives, all to no avail.  Does
anyone have any suggestions other that "write tighter code"?  ;-)


Thanks,
Dave

[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[Stefan Roese]

On Friday 14 March 2008, Dave Littell wrote:
> I'm working on an AMCC PPC440EPx platform that is similar to the AMCC
> Sequoia under U-Boot 1.3.1.  I've copied the Sequoia board and
> configuration as a starting point, but I've run into a problem with the
> size of the flash-based portion of U-Boot.  I've added code to
> initdram() that results in the addition of 3-4 dozen assembly
> instructions.  Now the board hangs after a very few tftp (or even ping)
> commands.

Does it really hang, or do you get an exception?

> However, if I remove the code I added, there's no problem 
> with tftp, etc.  I've narrowed it down to the point where I can make the
> difference between a working and non-working load by adding just a few
> instructions to initdram().  Some boundary or limit is being crossed
> somewhere...

I don't think so. It could be a problem with the DDR2 Denali setup for your 
board. What did you change in the DDR2 setup code? How similar is your board 
design to the Sequoia regarding DDR2 chips, termination etc?

> I'm sure I've overrun something somewhere but I'm afraid I'm not
> literate enough in the magic of the .lds file (which is unmodified from
> the Sequoia platform) to understand what adding so few instructions to
> the flash-based portion of U-boot might have broken.
>
> I've searched the FAQ and mailing list archives, all to no avail.  Does
> anyone have any suggestions other that "write tighter code"?  ;-)

Another idea comes to my mind here. It's on my todo list to implement a 
workaround for the 440EPx errata CHIP 11:

> CHIP_11: End of memory range area restricted access.
> Category: 3
> Overview:
> The 440EPx DDR controller does not acknowledge any 
> transaction which is determined to be crossing over the 
> end-of-memory-range boundary, even if the starting address is 
> within valid memory space. Any such transaction from any PLB4 
> master will result in a PLB time-out on PLB4 bus.
> Impact:
> In case of such misaligned bursts, PLB4 masters will not 
> retrieve any data at all, just the available data up to the 
> end of memory, especially the 440 CPU. For example, if a CPU 
> instruction required an operand located in memory within the 
> last 7 words of memory, the DCU master would burst read 8 
> words to update the data cache and cross over the 
> end-of-memory-range boundary. Such a DCU read would not be 
> answered by the DDR controller, resulting in a PLB4 time-out 
> and ultimately in a Machine Check interrupt. The data would 
> be inaccessible to the CPU.
> Workaround:
> Forbid any application to access the last 256 bytes of DDR 
> memory. For example, make your operating system believe that 
> the last 256 bytes of DDR memory are absent. AMCC has a patch 
> that does this, available for Linux.

One simple idea is to add :

#define CONFIG_PRAM	1

to your U-Boot config file.

Best regards,
Stefan

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=====================================================================

[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[Niklaus Giger]

Hi Dave

Dave Littell wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm working on an AMCC PPC440EPx platform that is similar to the AMCC
We have also a PPC440EPx based board (HCU5, in the u-boot tree).
> Sequoia under U-Boot 1.3.1.  I've copied the Sequoia board and
> configuration as a starting point, but I've run into a problem with the
> size of the flash-based portion of U-Boot.  I've added code to
> initdram() that results in the addition of 3-4 dozen assembly
> instructions.  Now the board hangs after a very few tftp (or even ping)
> commands.  However, if I remove the code I added, there's no problem
> with tftp, etc.  I've narrowed it down to the point where I can make the
> difference between a working and non-working load by adding just a few
> instructions to initdram().  Some boundary or limit is being crossed
> somewhere...

Recently, (the last few weeks) we did run in a similar problem that
loading the vxWorks image hangs in the middle of the tftp transfer.
Some boards have it never, newer ones more often and some have it more 
or less often depending on the physical locatian, e.g. they show the
behaviour at my workplace but not at the workplace of my co-worker.
Sometimes it has this behaviour just at the beginning and after a few
minutes it loads the whole image without problem.

I am investigating the problem. It seems that sometimes I get a
IVOR1 (Machine check) -exception. But unfortunatly I do not have at 
the moment a  setup where I can easily reproduce the problem.

This may be a problem which may or may not be related to yours.

Also be warned that the PPC440EPx is a very powerful CPU where a 
lot of parallelisme exists. We did run into subtle, hard to find
problems because the CPU did reorder read/write accesses to
different addreses. Therefore if you access somewhere memory based
CPLD/MACH or other registers always use the in_/out_<xx> macros.

Best regards

Niklaus

[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[Dave Littell]

Stefan Roese wrote:
> > On Friday 14 March 2008, Dave Littell wrote:
>> >> I'm working on an AMCC PPC440EPx platform that is similar to the AMCC
>> >> Sequoia under U-Boot 1.3.1.  I've copied the Sequoia board and
>> >> configuration as a starting point, but I've run into a problem
with the
>> >> size of the flash-based portion of U-Boot.  I've added code to
>> >> initdram() that results in the addition of 3-4 dozen assembly
>> >> instructions.  Now the board hangs after a very few tftp (or even
ping)
>> >> commands.
> >
> > Does it really hang, or do you get an exception?
> >

Hi Stefan,

Thanks very much for the reply - I very much appreciate any help you can
offer.

No exception appears.  It hangs to the point where a JTAG debugger is
unable to regain control of the processor.

>> >> However, if I remove the code I added, there's no problem
>> >> with tftp, etc.  I've narrowed it down to the point where I can
make the
>> >> difference between a working and non-working load by adding just a few
>> >> instructions to initdram().  Some boundary or limit is being crossed
>> >> somewhere...
> >
> > I don't think so. It could be a problem with the DDR2 Denali setup
for your
> > board. What did you change in the DDR2 setup code? How similar is
your board
> > design to the Sequoia regarding DDR2 chips, termination etc?
> >

From a hardware design perspective, much of the physical layout was
copied directly from the Sequoia (so I've been told), but it does use
memory from a different manufacturer.  The changes I added to initdram()
were to use the DDR Controller register values suggested by the AMCC DDR
Configuration Tool spreadsheet for two different PLB speeds.  I felt the
parameters were different enough to warrant using get_bus_speed() and a
simple if() to determine which set of parameters were loaded to the DDR
Controller.

If I instead use #ifdef's to determine at compile time which set of
parameters are loaded, the board runs and I can tftp (or ping) all day.
 However, if I replace that with my if() logic and both sets of
parameters (in the correct branch path - verified with the JTAG), the
board will hang after only a few tftp's (or pings).

Hm.

>> >> I'm sure I've overrun something somewhere but I'm afraid I'm not
>> >> literate enough in the magic of the .lds file (which is unmodified
from
>> >> the Sequoia platform) to understand what adding so few instructions to
>> >> the flash-based portion of U-boot might have broken.
>> >>
>> >> I've searched the FAQ and mailing list archives, all to no avail.
 Does
>> >> anyone have any suggestions other that "write tighter code"?   ;-)
> >
> > Another idea comes to my mind here. It's on my todo list to implement a
> > workaround for the 440EPx errata CHIP 11:
> >
>> >> CHIP_11: End of memory range area restricted access.
>> >> Category: 3
>> >> Overview:
>> >> The 440EPx DDR controller does not acknowledge any
>> >> transaction which is determined to be crossing over the
>> >> end-of-memory-range boundary, even if the starting address is
>> >> within valid memory space. Any such transaction from any PLB4
>> >> master will result in a PLB time-out on PLB4 bus.
>> >> Impact:
>> >> In case of such misaligned bursts, PLB4 masters will not
>> >> retrieve any data at all, just the available data up to the
>> >> end of memory, especially the 440 CPU. For example, if a CPU
>> >> instruction required an operand located in memory within the
>> >> last 7 words of memory, the DCU master would burst read 8
>> >> words to update the data cache and cross over the
>> >> end-of-memory-range boundary. Such a DCU read would not be
>> >> answered by the DDR controller, resulting in a PLB4 time-out
>> >> and ultimately in a Machine Check interrupt. The data would
>> >> be inaccessible to the CPU.
>> >> Workaround:
>> >> Forbid any application to access the last 256 bytes of DDR
>> >> memory. For example, make your operating system believe that
>> >> the last 256 bytes of DDR memory are absent. AMCC has a patch
>> >> that does this, available for Linux.
> >

Yes, I saw that and implemented the Linux kernel patch that AMCC
provides.  However, I didn't think that U-Boot ran up against the upper
boundary of RAM.

> > One simple idea is to add :
> >
> > #define CONFIG_PRAM	1
> >
> > to your U-Boot config file.
> >

I'll certainly give that a shot.


Thanks very much,
Dave

[U-Boot-Users] PPC440Epx Sequoia Flash-based size limitation?

[Dave Littell]

Stefan Roese wrote:
[deletia]
>
> Another idea comes to my mind here. It's on my todo list to implement a 
> workaround for the 440EPx errata CHIP 11:
> 
>> CHIP_11: End of memory range area restricted access.
[deletia]
> 
> One simple idea is to add :
> 
> #define CONFIG_PRAM	1
> 
> to your U-Boot config file.
> 

This seems to have fixed the problem, although I had to juggle the order
to get the PRAM trimmed out before the LOGBUFFER memory.  I later went
back and trimmed only the AMCC-recommended 256 bytes and this also seems
to resolved the problem.

Odd timing that CHIP_11 chose to bite, eh?  Thanks very much for the help.


Dave