On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 07:28:53PM +0100, Stefan Reinauer wrote: > * Peter Stuge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [061201 19:16]: > > > The assumption was that not much needs to happen before the SPD I2C > > bus is accessible by the CPU - is that valid? > > Since you need I2C, you need to get parts of the south bridge > working.
Even though it's on the DIMM? Ugh. :( > So, its basically the same amount of work as with the USB debug > port. Yeah. Not much point to it then. > Question is: Will we see systems without USB (debug port) but with > DDR2 sockets? See wiki page with list of EHCI chips that lack the debug port. On the other hand maybe all boards using them will have a serial port? > > If not, what IS easily accessible besides the boot ROM? (Which we > > don't want to rely on since we don't know exactly what it will speak > > when in the future.) We just need one bit that can do kHz signalling. > > SMI#? > > Boot rom is a good start I bet. That will always be there (as long > as we all do firmware development at least). > > It might be parallel yesterday, LPC today and SPI tomorrow, but that > is only the interface it connects to. Different connector, different > VHDL source and we should be fine, no? True. TSOPs are a bit unfriendly but still doable with a steady hand. > > > LPC is going away on many boards, I understand. > > > > But DDR(2) SDRAM will probably stay a while longer. Or not? > > If LPC goes away, we need to do SPI. Ok. If we get DDR3, we would > have to do that. Technical standards come and go,.. I'd prefer a > solution that is so cheap that I dont mind throwing the whole kit > away after doing a port or two, rather than trying to create > something that is good forever. Me too. But the kit only gets that cheap if it can be produced in at least a run of 100. And while those are too small quantities for even receiving a quote from some suppliers it's already too big for us. :\ The testing infrastructure is the dealbreaker right now. > > > I think that we are going into a world where we have to figure > > > out usb debug port. > > > > It's certainly one good debugging option but maybe not the only > > good one. > > Especially it does not help for reflashing. Finding something nifty > here would be nice. I hear you. //Peter -- linuxbios mailing list [email protected] http://www.openbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios
