Suche MIPS-I Anwender zum Test einer Windows Toolchain

[Michael F. (mifi)]

Hallo zusammen,

ich suche MIPS-I Anwender zum Test einer Windows mips-elf-gcc Toolchain.
Da ich selber noch kein MIPS-I Target habe, kann ich noch nicht
beurteilen ob die Toolchain auch wirklich benutzbar ist.

Die Toolchain basiert auf folgende Komponenten:

- binutils-2.21.1
- newlib-1.20.0
- gcc-4.6.1
- gdb-7.4

Die Toolchain benötigt kein Cygwin sonder ist mit MinGW gebaut.
Der GCC Patch kommt aus dem OpenCores Projekt "MPX". Hierdurch gibt
es folgende neue GCC Optionen:

- mnohwmult  - Disable mult/multu instructions (use software
               multiplication instead).
- mnohwdiv   - Disable div/divu instructions (use software division
               instead).
- mpatfree   - Disable use of formally patented lwl/lwr/swl/swr
               instructions (unaligned access instructions).

Vielen Dank an "Ultra Embedded" für den Patch.

Schickt mir eine Info über das Forum oder hinterlaßt eine
eMail Adresse und ihr bekommt den Link zur Toolchain.

Viele Grüße,
Michael

[Legacy M. (Firma: my) (legacy)]

unfortunately i do not understand german, i can only speak english, btw, 
i have a lot of MIPS hardware(1), also i have built toolchains, firmware 
and tools for them, so, in case you need any help, if you kindly write 
here in english i will be able to help.

regards

(1) e.g. Atheros SoC (MIPS32-r2), Atlas (MIPS32-r2), NEC and Toshiba 
MIPS CPU (MIPS4).

p.s.
if someone is interested, i built a full-working toolchain for linux, it 
is based on gentoo/x86-IA32 and it aims for running into virtual 
machines (e.g. CoNix or VirtualBOX). That may be an alternative solution 
for who wants to use it under Windows.

[W.S. (Gast)]

So look there:

"http://www.pollin.de/shop/dt/NjQ5OTA2OTk-/Bausaetze_Module/Module/Receiver_Mainboard_mit_Twin_DVB_C_Tuner.html";

This is a powerful MIPS design, running Windows CE 5 - and it is imho 
the cheapest eval board you can get.

btw: with every old "EVC" (embedded visual C) from microsoft you have a 
full MIPS toolchain.

kind regards
W.S.

[Legacy M. (Firma: my) (legacy)]

does it make any sense using a MIPS soft core when we have cheap 
MIPS32-R2 SoC like Atheros from 200MHz to 800Mhz ?

[René D. (Firma: www.dossmatik.de) (dose)]

Legacy My schrieb:
> does it make any sense using a MIPS soft core when we have cheap
> MIPS32-R2 SoC like Atheros from 200MHz to 800Mhz ?

This is not the question.
The question is >"How can I get familiar functionality into the FPGA?"
And the second question>"How can I use much code in the next project?"

One good soution is a microcontroller.
The FPGAs are now large enougth to put such complex device inside.

MIPS is atractive because the toolchain is avialable and also much 
literature is written.

[Legacy M. (Firma: my) (legacy)]

> The question is >"How can I get familiar functionality into the FPGA?"

the real question is: what you have to do with it ?

First of all you have to define the purpose, what is the final project ? 
Just toying with and fpga or having to deal with something that requires 
specific needs?

in case of "specify needs", in the most cases it is easy to understand 
that you are fine using MPU instead of putting soft cores into fpga, and 
using fpga to expand the MPU devices!

SPI is the simplest interface you can imagine, and it is not so complex 
to handle it up to 40Mbit/sec, that means it is the ideal way to 
interface an MPU with an fpga! You may need much more throughput, and in 
case you can think about FIFO synchronous or asynchronous interface.

I have interfaced an atheros9 Chip using its built-in USB2 EHCI with an 
fpga using a synchronous FIFO method 
(SOC----usb----cypress-USB-to-FIFO-chip----FPGA), and i got a throughput 
of 40Mbyte/sec! Obviously it is much more complex than the simple SPI, 
but it is extremely useful!

In my purposes i wanted to use a CMOS OV-CCD camera to toy with machine 
vision algorithm, so i used an fpga to interface the CMOS OV-CCD camera, 
acquiring images, doing a bit of FIR elaboration, and then sending 
everything to the SoC through its USB interface: that is the coolest way 
to develop an application because you could use linux lib-usb to handle 
the fpga communication through a simply bulk connections (already 
serviced by the linux kernel for free)

Note, the MPU inside the SoC is not able to drive the CMOS OV-CCD 
directly because this device is interrupt consuming and there is no way 
to use the DMA for that. But fpga can be designed to handle the OV-CCD 
in a custom way, so that is the proof of real things! Interfacing ASIC 
SoC to fpga is useful, much more useful than trying to put everything 
into fpga!

I was able to put linux into the Atheros SoC, so i was able to use a lot 
of tools to develop and debug the final application!

> And the second question>"How can I use much code in the next project?"

much code in the next project ? still no-sense, if you get MPUs you can 
recycle your code

> One good soution is a microcontroller.
> The FPGAs are now large enougth to put such complex device inside.

it's good only if you have a lot of man power and you have specific 
needs to be satisfied, something that smell like 
uncommon-extremmely-custom constrains. Common applications do not 
require higher integration which also cost a lot about human being 
resources involved into the debugging activity.

> MIPS is attractive because the toolchain is avialable and also much
> literature is written

with the last ARM chips you get the same at a reduced ratio 
what-you-can-really-to/how-much-they-cost

if you want to go for MIPS, you'd better buy a PIC32 chip from 
Microchip, then interfacing it to an fpga to extend its functionality, 
which is useful and has sense when you need "custom" devices.

An Atheros chip can be clocked up to 800Mhz, so it much more faster than 
a soft core, it could also have FPU (64bit of precision), an MMU, and it 
usually comes with a great debugger interface, an integrated Ethernet, a 
dram controller, DMA, a built-in USB2, and a lot of already validated 
functionality and costs the less! Just 10 USD for the whole system, and 
you are already ready just out of the box, toolchain are already 
provided, debugger are provided, too, there is no need to do 
long-time-frustrating debugging activity to find out which VHDL line 
code is wrong, no frustration around how to debug things, how to get a 
toolchain, etc. About PIC32, you could clock them at 80Mhz and to 
develop your firmware you just need to download a free-software from 
Microchip. MPlabX is powerful with everything you need.

Softcore are useless, I think they are good for teaching about 
"architecture" or to deal with hobby purposes, i mean in where the 
purpose is developing a CPU instead of using it for real things.

[Michael F. (mifi)]

Hallo Moderator,

dieser Thread kann geschlossen werden.

Gruß,
Michael

[Lothar M. (Firma: Titel) (lkmiller) (Moderator)]

Michael Fischer schrieb:
> dieser Thread kann geschlossen werden.
Hallo Michael, das machen wir eigentlich nur bei Beschimpfungen oder 
wüsten Vergehen. Aber auf deinen Wunsch: gesperrt.