### Bios

[Steve Spano]

Hello

Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used with the
AMD LX800 / CS5536?

I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel as an
ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND flash on the
IDE bus.

Any thoughts would also be appreciated - thank you

Steve Spano, President

Finger Lakes Engineering

[ron minnich]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Steve Spano  wrote:
> Hello
>
> Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used with the
> AMD LX800 / CS5536?
>
> I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel as an
> ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND flash on the
> IDE bus.
>
> Any thoughts would also be appreciated - thank you

If you get the part this should work fine. Actually I have shoehorned
2.6 kernels into 1 MB in the past -- lzma makes it work.

ron

[Steve Spano]

Hi Ron,

What part would that be? Our kernel is a little over a meg and we have a
512KB flash. We are also using a FirmwareHub device so I think we need to
goto an LPC flash?

WE have also started some internal R&D to look at an open-source video bios
for the LX800....I'll keep the list informed as we move forward. I would
like to host this somewhere so people could work on it.

Thanks

Steve Spano, President
Finger Lakes Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: ron minnich [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:14 PM
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [coreboot] ### Bios

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Steve Spano  wrote:
> Hello
>
> Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used 
> with the AMD LX800 / CS5536?
>
> I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel as 
> an ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND flash 
> on the IDE bus.
>
> Any thoughts would also be appreciated - thank you

If you get the part this should work fine. Actually I have shoehorned 2.6
kernels into 1 MB in the past -- lzma makes it work.

ron

[Jordan Crouse]

ron minnich wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Steve Spano  wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used with the
> > AMD LX800 / CS5536?
> >
> > I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel as an
> > ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND flash on the
> > IDE bus.
> >
> > Any thoughts would also be appreciated - thank you
>
> If you get the part this should work fine. Actually I have shoehorned
> 2.6 kernels into 1 MB in the past -- lzma makes it work.

If you don't need anything but the filesystem drivers, then < 1Mb with 
LZMA should be more then enough.

Jordan

[Peter Stuge]

Hi Steve,

Steve Spano wrote:
> Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used
> with the AMD LX800 / CS5536?

Yes, at least SST have parts that fit.

Depending on if you need LPC or FWH you can get the SST49LF160C
or SST49LF016C parts. One of them is dual mode (both LPC and FWH) and
the other does only one mode, but I forget which is which.
Unfortunately the data sheets are not very clear on this. :\

Which part is your system using at the moment? That will indicate if
you need LPC or FWH.
> I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel
> as an ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND
> flash on the IDE bus.

That should work beautifully!

//Peter

[Steve Spano]

Hello

We using an SST/Pflash 512KB FWH device. I think SST is getting away from
all FWH but could be wrong.

Glad to hear the YAFFS2+NAND+IDE will be good. Although, I don't seem to see
the NAND over IDE MTD driver in my kernel tree. Need to keep looking for
that one....

Steve Spano, President
Finger Lakes Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]]
On Behalf Of Peter Stuge
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:14 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [coreboot] ### Bios

Hi Steve,

Steve Spano wrote:
> Is anyone aware of a 2Mbyte PLCC32 BIOS flash prom that can be used 
> with the AMD LX800 / CS5536?

Yes, at least SST have parts that fit.

Depending on if you need LPC or FWH you can get the SST49LF160C or
SST49LF016C parts. One of them is dual mode (both LPC and FWH) and the other
does only one mode, but I forget which is which. Unfortunately the data
sheets are not very clear on this. :\

Which part is your system using at the moment? That will indicate if you
need LPC or FWH.
> I would like to use coreboot V2 to directly launch the Linux kernel as 
> an ELF payload and then use a YAFFS2 filesystem to access a NAND flash 
> on the IDE bus.

That should work beautifully!

//Peter

[Tom Sylla]

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Steve Spano  wrote:
> Hello
>
> We using an SST/Pflash 512KB FWH device. I think SST is getting away from
> all FWH but could be wrong.

SST49LF016 is the FWH, I would bet you are using an SST49LF004 now.
http://www.sst.com/downloads/datasheet/S71237.pdf

They are non-stocked, but available, at mouser:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=sst49lf016&Ns=P_SField
> Glad to hear the YAFFS2+NAND+IDE will be good. Although, I don't seem to see
> the NAND over IDE MTD driver in my kernel tree. Need to keep looking for
> that one....

Maybe you aren't looking for the right thing. Some pins on 553x are
muxed between the IDE controller and the NAND controller. If you mean
that you want to use the 5536 internal NAND controller, the driver is:

http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.27.5/drivers/mtd/nand/cs553x_nand.c

(make sure the muxing is set correctly by your firmware)

If you have some sort of IDE-NAND bridge device (like those in CF
cards), then you just use the IDE driver.

[Steve Spano]

TOM! That's super the cs553x_nand.c was what I was looking for. We have a
NAND directly conencted to the IDE bus. Currently the BIOS is setup for IDE
so we have to play with the muxing somewhere as you suggest.

Thanks alot

Steve Spano, President
Finger Lakes Engineering

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Sylla [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:30 PM
To: [e-mail]
Cc: Peter Stuge; [e-mail]
Subject: Re: [coreboot] ### Bios

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 4:19 PM, Steve Spano  wrote:
> Hello
>
> We using an SST/Pflash 512KB FWH device. I think SST is getting away 
> from all FWH but could be wrong.

SST49LF016 is the FWH, I would bet you are using an SST49LF004 now.
http://www.sst.com/downloads/datasheet/S71237.pdf

They are non-stocked, but available, at mouser:
http://www.mouser.com/Search/Refine.aspx?Keyword=sst49lf016&Ns=P_SField
> Glad to hear the YAFFS2+NAND+IDE will be good. Although, I don't seem 
> to see the NAND over IDE MTD driver in my kernel tree. Need to keep 
> looking for that one....

Maybe you aren't looking for the right thing. Some pins on 553x are muxed
between the IDE controller and the NAND controller. If you mean that you
want to use the 5536 internal NAND controller, the driver is:

http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.27.5/drivers/mtd/nand/cs553x_nand.c

(make sure the muxing is set correctly by your firmware)

If you have some sort of IDE-NAND bridge device (like those in CF cards),
then you just use the IDE driver.

[Peter Stuge]

Steve Spano wrote:
> We using an SST/Pflash 512KB FWH device.

Do you know the exact part number? I guess it's SST49LF004A or
SST49LF004B, right?
> I think SST is getting away from all FWH but could be wrong.

I think they'll still keep the 8 and 16Mbit parts for a while. They
have SST49LF008A which is 1Mbyte FWH, and SST49LF016C which is the
2Mbyte part.
> Glad to hear the YAFFS2+NAND+IDE will be good. Although, I don't
> seem to see the NAND over IDE MTD driver in my kernel tree. Need
> to keep looking for that one....

Does it need special treatment? I assumed it just works<tm> with the
regular pata_cs5536 driver. I know coreboot can set up the NAND. I
thought that would be enough?

//Peter