AT91SAM9260 booting and board questions

I am trying to design a new board based on the AT91SAM9260 processor
and had a few questions :

- Any idea if the DP83848CVV Phyter from National Semi would work with
this proc. (it supports both RMII and MII)

- I am not clear as to point of having both 16-bit NAND flash and
serial DataFlash as shown in the AT91SAM9260-EK. It seems like one
could use either flash chips for running linux, presumeably either one
should be enough on a board, right? I was hoping to use only a single
8-pin serial flash chip on my board.

-From what I understood so far, if BMS is set to 0 the proc loads data
(bootloader - uboot) off the dataflash into the SRAM and starts
executing, and then uboot somehow loads up the kernel. I can't seem to
figure out the exact process though, is there a link to a flow chart
somewhere which can explain it.

- toolchain etc : is there a clear guide somewhere which explains a
step by step process of compiling/packaging and running linux on that
board. Atmel has a bunch of links to linuxlink but its an expensive
fee.

Thanks.

Also could someone please recommend a lowcost JTAG tool for this
board?

On Mar 14, 10:20 am, shinystart...@gmail.com wrote:
> I am trying to design a new board based on the AT91SAM9260 processor
> and had a few questions :
>
> - Any idea if the DP83848CVV Phyter from National Semi would work with
> this proc. (it supports both RMII and MII)
>
> - I am not clear as to point of having both 16-bit NAND flash and
> serial DataFlash as shown in the AT91SAM9260-EK. It seems like one
> could use either flash chips for running linux, presumeably either one
> should be enough on a board, right? I was hoping to use only a single
> 8-pin serial flash chip on my board.

Nop, i think it's booting off the Nand Flash.
You can probably run without the serial flash,
but not without the nand flash.
You have to read the manuals for sure.

On Mar 14, 7:56 pm, "linnix" <m...@linnix.info-for.us> wrote:
> On Mar 14, 10:20 am, shinystart...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > I am trying to design a new board based on the AT91SAM9260 processor
> > and had a few questions :
>
> > - Any idea if the DP83848CVV Phyter from National Semi would work with
> > this proc. (it supports both RMII and MII)
>
> > - I am not clear as to point of having both 16-bit NAND flash and
> > serial DataFlash as shown in the AT91SAM9260-EK. It seems like one
> > could use either flash chips for running linux, presumeably either one
> > should be enough on a board, right? I was hoping to use only a single
> > 8-pin serial flash chip on my board.
>
> Nop, i think it's booting off the Nand Flash.
> You can probably run without the serial flash,
> but not without the nand flash.
> You have to read the manuals for sure.

The AT91SAM9260 can boot from serial flash or nand flash. See section
13.4 of the manual
http://www.atmel.com/dyn/resources/prod_documents/doc6221.pdf

The serial dataflash devices are more limited in size and speed,
however.

On Mar 14, 7:25 pm, shinystart...@gmail.com wrote:
> Also could someone please recommend a lowcost JTAG tool for this
> board?

For lowest-cost development, you can also do without JTAG, and use the
DEBUG UART port to upload your code, and debug your application.

Okay so i think I have a better idea now. I will use the DataFlash in
my current design (is fast/small/cheap enough for me) but will also
leave pads for a nand flash, if atmel ever stops making the Dataflash
parts in the future.

about using the Debug UART : how will this work if I had a brand new
chip (blank flash), or for whatever reason I had to reflash the device
completely ?

Any clues about the toolchain? clear guides on how to compile a custom
kernel for this board?



>
> For lowest-cost development, you can also do without JTAG, and use the
> DEBUG UART port to upload your code, and debug your application.

<shinystartrek@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1173927717.520395.104180@e65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
> Okay so i think I have a better idea now. I will use the DataFlash in

<SNIP>

>>
>> For lowest-cost development, you can also do without JTAG, and use the
>> DEBUG UART port to upload your code, and debug your application.
>
>

When you get to software debugging, the software engineers will hate you for 
not putting on a JTAG connector.  The connector costs pennies.  You will 
recover the cost of every connector you ever use on your first software 
problem.

Scott 

Any suggestions for a 'lowcost' JTAG cable that can target the
AT91SAM9260 ??



On Mar 15, 10:24 am, "Not Really Me"
<scott@validatedQWERTYsoftware...XYZZYcom> wrote:
> <shinystart...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1173927717.520395.104180@e65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Okay so i think I have a better idea now. I will use the DataFlash in
>
> <SNIP>
>
>
>
> >> For lowest-cost development, you can also do without JTAG, and use the
> >> DEBUG UART port to upload your code, and debug your application.
>
> When you get to software debugging, the software engineers will hate you for
> not putting on a JTAG connector.  The connector costs pennies.  You will
> recover the cost of every connector you ever use on your first software
> problem.
>
> Scott

>I am trying to design a new board based on the AT91SAM9260 processor
> and had a few questions :
>
> - Any idea if the DP83848CVV Phyter from National Semi would work with
> this proc. (it supports both RMII and MII)
>

The chip specification was modified to support this part, but
it has nto been tested in practice by Atmel.
The advantage oft he PHYTER is the clock output which
can be used to drive the main clock of the AT91SAM9260.
Thus you can build a system with only one crystal.

The crystal is connected to the PHYTER which probvids
the clock to the SAM9260, and by setting OSCSEL to
use the internal R/C oscillator, you do not need the 32 kHz crystal.

> - I am not clear as to point of having both 16-bit NAND flash and
> serial DataFlash as shown in the AT91SAM9260-EK. It seems like one
> could use either flash chips for running linux, presumeably either one
> should be enough on a board, right? I was hoping to use only a single
> 8-pin serial flash chip on my board.
>

The recommended use of the bootROM is to
have an SPI connector which uses chip select 0
and use chip select 1 for the internal dataflash.

This allows easy production, since you can have a test system
containing a dataflash and to factory program, you only
connect a flatcable between the SPI connector and the test system.

The SAM9260 will then find a valid image in the test system
dataflash, and will boot from that.
The code will then copy the contents of the test system dataflash
to the internal dataflash on chip select 1.
If I were you I would use chip select 2 for a second dataflash.
There will be pin compatible 16 and 32 MB dataflash chips in the future.


> -From what I understood so far, if BMS is set to 0 the proc loads data
> (bootloader - uboot) off the dataflash into the SRAM and starts
> executing, and then uboot somehow loads up the kernel. I can't seem to
> figure out the exact process though, is there a link to a flow chart
> somewhere which can explain it.
>

If BMS is set to "1" (not "0") , the CPU starts executing from
the internal bootROM.
This will search SPI0.NPCS0 and then SPI0.NPCS1 and then NAND flash
for a valid image.
An image is deemed valid, if a valid exception table is found.

If an image is found, it is copied into 4 kB of internal SRAM and
the image is executed.

The typical image is "at91-bootstrap".

"at91-bootstrap" will initialize the SDRAM and copy u-Boot
from 0x8000 in the dataflash to SDRAM, and jump to the start of U-boot.

Within U-boot, you can download linux and root file system to dataflash.
Before linux boot, the "bootcmd" will load the linux kernel from flash to
SDRAM
and if a ramdisk is used, this will be loaded as well.
If JFFS2 is used, this is not neccessary.


> - toolchain etc : is there a clear guide somewhere which explains a
> step by step process of compiling/packaging and running linux on that
> board. Atmel has a bunch of links to linuxlink but its an expensive
> fee.

Try buildroot.uclibc.org to build a root file system
Have my own version at www.at91.com as a project.
but there are a few issues that needs to be fixed still.


>
> Thanks.
>




-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB

<shinystartrek@gmail.com> skrev i meddelandet 
news:1173896726.171290.250030@p15g2000hsd.googlegroups.com...
> Also could someone please recommend a lowcost JTAG tool for this
> board?
>

AT91SAM-ICE should do.
-- 
Best Regards,
Ulf Samuelsson
This is intended to be my personal opinion which may,
or may not be shared by my employer Atmel Nordic AB