Porting coreboot to Intel Atom (Silverthorne) & SCH US15W (Poulsbo) chipset

[Mansoor]

Hi,

I have a Atom Silverthorne Poulsbo based board
(http://www.iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm). I want to port coreboot on this
platform.

I would like to know if anybody has started/suceeded in porting coreboot to
Atom, also if there is anyone interested in such a port.

I saw two threads in mail archive but with little information,but it was
posted long ago. Please refer these two threads for more information on
Silverthorne and Poulsbo.

http://www.mail-archive.com/***@coreboot.org/msg02856.html

http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2008-May/034189.html

If anyone can suggest/guide me in following, it will be helpful in getting
started in right track.

1)Which version of coreboot can be used (v2 or v3) ?
2)Which platform (CPU,motherboard,EC) can be taken as reference ?

Thanks
Mansoor


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and any attachment (s) is for authorised use by the
intended recipient (s) only. It may contain proprietary material, confidential
information and/or be subject to the legal privilege of iWave Systems
Technologies Private Limited. If you have received this message in error,
please notify the originator immediately. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are notified that you are strictly prohibited from retaining,
using, copying, alerting or disclosing the content of this message. Thank you
for your co-operation.

[Peter Stuge]

Hello Mansoor, welcome to the coreboot community!

Post by Mansoor
I have a Atom Silverthorne Poulsbo based board
(http://www.iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm).
I want to port coreboot on this platform.

That's wonderful!

Post by Mansoor
I would like to know if anybody has started/suceeded in porting
coreboot to Atom,

I do not think anyone has.

Post by Mansoor
also if there is anyone interested in such a port.

I would say that there is a lot of interest. There are certainly many
possible uses for such a port. And it will also be very valuable for
the community to learn about embedded Intel hardware which is so far
not so well understood here.

Post by Mansoor
If anyone can suggest/guide me in following, it will be helpful in
getting started in right track.
1)Which version of coreboot can be used (v2 or v3) ?

That is a good question. I find v3 much easier to understand, but it
is still in design testing phase, and so far it only really works on
AMD Geode LX.

The most effort is coming into the v2 codebase, it is more tested,
but it is more difficult to penetrate.

Post by Mansoor
2)Which platform (CPU,motherboard,EC) can be taken as reference ?

I do not have specific knowledge about Silverthorne Poulsbo, but I
understand that they introduce some new things into the x86 power
management domain.

As for a basic platform I think VIA CN700 is clean hardware-wise, but
I have not spent a lot of time with the code. There is support for
the VIA EPIA-CN mainboard for example.

AMD Geode LX is another option, but it has it's oddities which may or
may not fit with how Silverthorne Poulsbo works. There is support for
the PC Engines ALIX.1 mainboard for example. (alix1c in coreboot, but
will run also on alix1d hardware.)

As for EC I don't think there is really any code in coreboot at
present. :\

Some simple EC things have gone into superio code because that's
where we've encountered them so far, but we don't have a good EC
infrastructure.

There has been discussion about starting an OpenEC project, and I
think that is a good idea, but so far there hasn't been a lot of
resources.

The latest progress in power management is the infrastructure added
to coreboot ACPI by Rudolf Marek just the last few days, to do S3
well. Rudolf has been working on AMD64 hardware.

We will help you, but we are also very open even to fundamental
suggestions.


//Peter

[bari]

Post by Mansoor
Hi,
I have a Atom Silverthorne Poulsbo based board
(http://www.iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm). I want to port coreboot on this
platform.
I would like to know if anybody has started/suceeded in porting coreboot
to Atom, also if there is anyone interested in such a port.

There is lots of interest in Atom support. Nobody I am aware of has
enough documentation yet. Maybe you do since you have an Atom based COM
module? http://iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm

Post by Mansoor
1)Which version of coreboot can be used (v2 or v3) ?
2)Which platform (CPU,motherboard,EC) can be taken as reference ?

The i945 is supported by v2 so an Atom + i945 board would be the
shortest path to success.

-Bari

[Joseph Smith]

Post by bari

Post by Mansoor
Hi,
I have a Atom Silverthorne Poulsbo based board
(http://www.iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm). I want to port coreboot on this
platform.
I would like to know if anybody has started/suceeded in porting coreboot
to Atom, also if there is anyone interested in such a port.

There is lots of interest in Atom support. Nobody I am aware of has
enough documentation yet. Maybe you do since you have an Atom based COM
module? http://iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm

Post by Mansoor
1)Which version of coreboot can be used (v2 or v3) ?
2)Which platform (CPU,motherboard,EC) can be taken as reference ?

The i945 is supported by v2 so an Atom + i945 board would be the
shortest path to success.

Yes, I would have to agree with Bari here. You should start with the i945
code.
--
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org

[bari]

There are several i945 + Atom boards available. This way you can develop
and test Atom on a working chipset and then work on the US15W.

-Bari

Thanks bari and joseph for your sugession.I will use i945 code as reference
Regards
Mansoor
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 7:45 PM
Subject: Re: [coreboot] Porting coreboot to Intel Atom (Silverthorne) &
SCH US15W (Poulsbo) chipset

Post by Joseph Smith

Post by bari

Post by Mansoor
Hi,
I have a Atom Silverthorne Poulsbo based board
(http://www.iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm). I want to port coreboot on this
platform.
I would like to know if anybody has started/suceeded in porting coreboot
to Atom, also if there is anyone interested in such a port.

There is lots of interest in Atom support. Nobody I am aware of has
enough documentation yet. Maybe you do since you have an Atom based COM
module? http://iwavesystems.com/iW-Q7.htm

Post by Mansoor
1)Which version of coreboot can be used (v2 or v3) ?
2)Which platform (CPU,motherboard,EC) can be taken as reference ?

The i945 is supported by v2 so an Atom + i945 board would be the
shortest path to success.

Yes, I would have to agree with Bari here. You should start with the i945
code.
--
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org
--
http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and any attachment (s) is for authorised use
by the
intended recipient (s) only. It may contain proprietary material,
confidential
information and/or be subject to the legal privilege of iWave Systems
Technologies Private Limited. If you have received this message in error,
please notify the originator immediately. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are notified that you are strictly prohibited from
retaining,
using, copying, alerting or disclosing the content of this message.
Thank you
for your co-operation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER: This e-mail and any attachment (s) is for authorised use by the
intended recipient (s) only. It may contain proprietary material,
confidential
information and/or be subject to the legal privilege of iWave Systems
Technologies Private Limited. If you have received this message in error,
please notify the originator immediately. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are notified that you are strictly prohibited from
retaining,
using, copying, alerting or disclosing the content of this message.
Thank you
for your co-operation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[K***@bench.com]

Post by bari
There are several i945 + Atom boards available. This way you can
develop and test Atom on a working chipset and then work on the
US15W.

In my opinion, porting US15W may not be worthwhile, since it doesn't
support the SPI bus which would allow use of SPI NOR flash. US15W
supports FWH which Intel has already obsoleted, although It may have
contracted with third parties to supply FWH devices for this chip set.

Also, this chipset almost requires an embedded controller to handle
power and translate between FWH and SPI bus to support SPI NOR devices.
Intel does offer a CPLD solution that avoids the use of the embedded
controller, but the CPLD would only permit reading of the SPI NOR
flash and absolutely no writing of it.

The US15W also has it own microcode updating that the BIOS/firmware
must support.

The i945/ICH7M would be a far better final target for an Atom chipset
and has none of the above mentioned issues. Of course you would need
to use Diamondville Atom rather Silverthorne Atom in this case.

Good luck with your Poulsbo (US15W) port, assuming you are willing to
spend 6-9 months on it. It could be more or less than that depending
on the number of people working on it and their firmware experience.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs

[Corey Osgood]

Post by K***@bench.com
The i945/ICH7M would be a far better final target for an Atom chipset
and has none of the above mentioned issues. Of course you would need
to use Diamondville Atom rather Silverthorne Atom in this case.

The problem with i945, from what I've read, is that the i945 chipset uses as
much or perhaps more power then the CPU, which makes it less than ideal for
low power embedded systems, especially battery powered ones e.g. nettops.

-Corey

[Joseph Smith]

Post by Corey Osgood

Post by K***@bench.com
The i945/ICH7M would be a far better final target for an Atom chipset
and has none of the above mentioned issues. Of course you would need
to use Diamondville Atom rather Silverthorne Atom in this case.

The problem with i945, from what I've read, is that the i945 chipset uses as
much or perhaps more power then the CPU, which makes it less than ideal for
low power embedded systems, especially battery powered ones e.g. nettops.

Looks like the ECS 945GCT-D might be a good starting choice. It looks like
the SPI has a dip socket already :-)
--
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org

[Joseph Smith]

Post by Corey Osgood

Post by Corey Osgood

Post by K***@bench.com
The i945/ICH7M would be a far better final target for an Atom chipset
and has none of the above mentioned issues. Of course you would need
to use Diamondville Atom rather Silverthorne Atom in this case.

The problem with i945, from what I've read, is that the i945 chipset

uses

Post by Corey Osgood
as
much or perhaps more power then the CPU, which makes it less than ideal for
low power embedded systems, especially battery powered ones e.g.

nettops.
Looks like the ECS 945GCT-D might be a good starting choice. It looks like
the SPI has a dip socket already :-)

Or even the Jetway NF94-270-LF.
--
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org

[Joseph Smith]

Post by K***@bench.com

Post by bari
There are several i945 + Atom boards available. This way you can
develop and test Atom on a working chipset and then work on the
US15W.

In my opinion, porting US15W may not be worthwhile, since it doesn't
support the SPI bus which would allow use of SPI NOR flash. US15W
supports FWH which Intel has already obsoleted, although It may have
contracted with third parties to supply FWH devices for this chip set.
Also, this chipset almost requires an embedded controller to handle
power and translate between FWH and SPI bus to support SPI NOR devices.
Intel does offer a CPLD solution that avoids the use of the embedded
controller, but the CPLD would only permit reading of the SPI NOR
flash and absolutely no writing of it.
The US15W also has it own microcode updating that the BIOS/firmware
must support.
The i945/ICH7M would be a far better final target for an Atom chipset
and has none of the above mentioned issues. Of course you would need
to use Diamondville Atom rather Silverthorne Atom in this case.
Good luck with your Poulsbo (US15W) port, assuming you are willing to
spend 6-9 months on it. It could be more or less than that depending
on the number of people working on it and their firmware experience.

Hey this is not very encouraging but very discouraging:-(
But I'm sure Albert Einstein heard heard things like this every day!
Mansoor, if you want to develop coreboot support for the Atom, I say go for
it :-)
--
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org

[K***@bench.com]

...

Post by Joseph Smith

Post by K***@bench.com
Good luck with your Poulsbo (US15W) port, assuming you are willing to
spend 6-9 months on it. It could be more or less than that depending
on the number of people working on it and their firmware experience.

Hey this is not very encouraging but very discouraging:-(
But I'm sure Albert Einstein heard heard things like this every day!
Mansoor, if you want to develop coreboot support for the Atom, I say
go for it :-)

Supporting Atom on coreboot is (almost) trivial, if one is willing to
use the already supported 945/ICH7 chipset and maybe adapt to 945GSE.
It may actually take more time to set up a development system than do
the few days or a week of porting that the Atom processor may require.

On the other hand, the US15W is likely to consume far more resources
and literally stretch into a 9 month or more project. The US15W is
not worth the effort, considering all its limitations that I have
previously mentioned.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs