High speed '400 based platforms

Gentlemen -

I am working with a 74MHz TINI '400 platform and using non-battery-backed
high-speed SRAM. To do this, I perform a copy from Flash to SRAM at system
start-up. I have worked out code to perform snapshots of SRAM to the flash,
and I will be working on code to capture the Flash data and save it for
re-insertion into the flash at production test time.

I understand that many of you are working with 74MHz configurations that are
similar, and I want to offer my assistance where I can. Please let me know if
we can share any code or tools for working with the "special needs" of a
high-speed '400-based platform.

I need a few days to clean it up, and then I will attempt to publish some of
my code to those who are interested.

The issues are:

1) Given a prototype system loaded-up and ready to go, capture a snap-shot of
it to the Flash memory. This requires that a small utility be injected using
the loader into high memory and run.

2) The snapshot utility must also inject the signature and code into the Flash
that will be recognized and perform the copy-down on each system reset. 

3) Fast utilities need to exist to erase and then load the flash during
production hardware testing.

4) Reliable methods for doing field upgrades of the TINI-OS in Flash will
become important, too! (I think it will be easy to re-write the flash and then
reset the platform, but there are pitfalls! What if the platform resets while
the flash is half-updated?)

5) What about net-boot and restart-from-flash? How can the two work best
together on real platforms?


I also will need to make some native code for allowing Java to access the
slower flash memory. (I would love to hear more about extending the flash into
slower Flash memory while running from SRAM at 74Mhz! I hear that it can be
done, but I have no idea how! Has anyone done this yet?)

As I work on these items for our system, I will share them. And I hope that
anyone who has good ideas (or code) for methods of doing these steps will do
likewise!


Chris Fox


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