Re: Guidance porting AT91sam7

[Nick Garnett <nickg at ecoscentric dot com>]

"Meiring, H, Mnr <meiring@sun.ac.za>" <meiring@sun.ac.za> writes:

> The at91sam7a series seems to be an combination of the 7s and 7x
> series- basically the 7s with an ebi (my view may change as I look
> at more detail). There is however differences with the startup, the
> 7a series have a clock manager that handles that, so the platform
> setup should change a bit. The interrupts seems to be fairly
> similar, but i will first try to get redboot working and then worry
> about interrupts.
> 
> I will have a look and shout if I have q's

Be warned that there be dragons here. I added SAM7A series support to
the eCosCentric source tree a little while ago. It was not nice. The
A1 and A2 devices are SAM7's in name only. They differ in lots of ways
from the S and X series, and from the earlier AT91 parts; there are
almost no functional units that remain identical and some, like the
PDC and PIO are very weirdly different. I suspect that they are odd
parts that have been shoehorned into the SAM product line as a
marketing exercise, there is certainly no technical reason for it.

There is further confusion because the SAM7A3 *does* share most
functional units with the S and X series.

I suspect that the A1 and A2  may be discontinued fairly quickly. So
think hard about whether you really want to use the A2. You will be
much better off using an S or X series part, or the A3.


And, of course, eCosCentric can offer you a working port if you want
to save yourself a lot of grief.


-- 
Nick Garnett                                     eCos Kernel Architect
eCosCentric Limited     http://www.eCosCentric.com/   The eCos experts
Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK.    Tel: +44 1223 245571
Registered in England and Wales: Reg No 4422071.