Embedded Controller (EC)

[Аладышев Константин]

Hello! I'm trying to understand, what is the easiest way today to integrate
EC to custom motherboard? What controller should I choose for new custom
motherboard?

1) First of all, are there any ECs on market that ship with embedded
firmware, where all you need to do is just a little bit of register
configuration (like SuperIO)? Or is it always like you need to write all
firmware by yourself? In that case what is the main difference between
ordinary microcontroller (for example STM32) and some controller marked by
vendor as EC?

2) How stable and flexible are projects about open EC firmware? Is it
possible to adapt these projects for my custom motherboard?

I'm talking about:
- Chromium Embedded Controller:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/ec-development
- Origami-EC: https://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=origami-ec.git;a=summary

3) What is the current status of EC support from coreboot point of view?
https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/coreboot.git/tree/src/ec

Best regards,
Aladyshev Konstantin

[Vadim Bendebury]

[+cc a couple of guys who might have some advice in this respect]

On Fri, Dec 1, 2017 at 5:07 AM, Аладышев Константин 
wrote:
> Hello! I'm trying to understand, what is the easiest way today to integrate
> EC to custom motherboard? What controller should I choose for new custom
> motherboard?
> First of all, are there any ECs on market that ship with embedded
>
> firmware, where all you need to do is just a little bit of register
> configuration (like SuperIO)? Or is it always like you need to write all
> firmware by yourself? In that case what is the main difference between
> ordinary microcontroller (for example STM32) and some controller marked by
> vendor as EC?
> How stable and flexible are projects about open EC firmware? Is it
>
> possible to adapt these projects for my custom motherboard?
>
> I'm talking about:
> Chromium Embedded Controller:
>
> http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/ec-development
> Origami-EC: https://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=origami-ec.git;a=summary
> What is the current status of EC support from coreboot point of view?
>
> https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/coreboot.git/tree/src/ec
>
> Best regards,
> Aladyshev Konstantin

[Paul Kocialkowski]

Hi,

Le vendredi 01 décembre 2017 à 16:07 +0300, Аладышев Константин a
écrit :
> How stable and flexible are projects about open EC firmware? Is it
>
> possible to adapt these projects for my custom motherboard?
>
> I'm talking about:
> Chromium Embedded Controller:
>
> http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/ec-development
> Origami-EC: https://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=origami-ec.git;a=sum
>
> mary

I gave a presentation about the current status of the Origami-EC project
at ECC in Bochum this year! You can find the slides at:
https://ecc2017.coreboot.org/uploads/talk/presentation/51/origami-ec-status-...

The project is still in an early development stage and is not functional
as-is. Some I/O features are currently supported on the G505s and can be
used thought the command line via UART.

I will be launching dedicated ressources for this project at some point
in the (hopefully) near future. In the meantime, contributions are
welcome!

Cheers,

On 12/09/2017 09:22 AM, Paul Kocialkowski wrote:
> The project is still in an early development stage and is not functional
> as-is. Some I/O features are currently supported on the G505s and can be
> used thought the command line via UART.
>
> I will be launching dedicated ressources for this project at some point
> in the (hopefully) near future. In the meantime, contributions are
> welcome!

Cool! I wish you luck on this project - an open source EC would be 
really great for the G505S as it is one of the last best owner 
controlled non-ME/PSP x86-64 laptops, it also has an IOMMU!

I am however getting a "400 - Invalid action parameter" when attempting 
to visit the project page.

[Paul Kocialkowski]

Le samedi 09 décembre 2017 à 14:21 -0500, [e-mail] a écrit :
> On 12/09/2017 09:22 AM, Paul Kocialkowski wrote:
> > The project is still in an early development stage and is not
> > functional
> > as-is. Some I/O features are currently supported on the G505s and
> > can be
> > used thought the command line via UART.
> >
> > I will be launching dedicated ressources for this project at some
> > point
> > in the (hopefully) near future. In the meantime, contributions are
> > welcome!
>
> Cool! I wish you luck on this project - an open source EC would be 
> really great for the G505S as it is one of the last best owner 
> controlled non-ME/PSP x86-64 laptops, it also has an IOMMU!

Ideally, having the G505s supported by native code in coreboot (without
using AGESA) and a free EC would be really awesome!

There is definitely potential in this laptop to get a modern x86 well-
supported by free boot software!
> I am however getting a "400 - Invalid action parameter" when
> attempting to visit the project page.

The source code is hosted at:
http://git.code.paulk.fr/gitweb/?p=origami-ec.git;a=summary

which should work most of the time.

Cheers,