[coreboot] brainstorm: new LPC dongle from Artec Group

Peter Stuge peter at stuge.se
Fri Aug 8 16:15:19 CEST 2008


On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 03:02:13PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
> Peter Stuge wrote:
> >* By far the most important one: Use a more intelligent USB chip
> 
> * Possibly, in connection with this, use SRAM or DRAM to store or
> cache the images transferred from the host side. I think writing
> the flash takes about as long as transferring it over serial port,

Each 128K block erase+write takes at least 1.8s. Look for a flash
part with better performance for the next generation.


> so using a faster USB (network instead of serial) chip would only
> move the bottle neck.

Exactly how a fast USB interface should work is a great question.
Making the device a CDC Ethernet device like the GALEP-5 would be
nice because it will be easy to interface with, but it would also
require the FPGA to run a full IP stack, which I don't think we want.

I would look for other device class specs but possibly the best
solution would simply be a vendor specific device with two (IN+OUT)
bulk endpoints and an efficient protocol. As long as documentation is
provided, I don't think there's any shame in vendor specific devices.
(And with the dongle there's source.)


> * One habit of the dongle is very ugly; the need to reset it after
> loading it. I think it would be a good idea to have the dongle
> reset itself (or, the lpc part of itself) after the write process
> is complete.

Great point. It should not need a reset at all. Hopefully this does
not go beyond the VHDL.


> * 0x3f8 serial port logging support on lpc. (Sorry, I never looked
> into this)

Great idea, also VHDL. Besides Stefan's points I have another VHDL
request;

* Don't require explicit enable for full memory decode.


> * A couple of jumper pins could be preconfigured as host side
> software programmable GPIOs for tasks like triggering a reset on
> the target system.

Yes, some open collector outputs should be cheap to add.


//Peter
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