RE: [ECOS] What processor to use?

["Robert Cragie" <rcc at jennic dot com>]

> I am designing an embedded board which needs an ethernet connection.  I
> am considering using ECOS but I am unsure of whether or not it is the
> best solution for me to use.  I have looked at the documentation but
> would like some comments from people who have gone through the procedure
> of using ECOS on a custom designed board so I can get a better feel for
> whether it is worth me going down this route.
>
> Basically I need processor + flash + RAM + ethernet.
>
> I would like to use the minimum of hardware, and I think that this may
> be one of the Atmel Arm devices (with onboard FLASH + SRAM) along with a
> CS8900 ethernet chip.  This gives me a two chip processor solution.  My
> hardware (DACs/ADCs digital IO) can all be interfaced over a very simple
> bus - I don't need PCI or anything high performance as my application is
> pretty simple.

You could consider using the Samsung S3C4530 device. There is an eCos port
to the SNDS reference platform. This has ARM7TDMI core plus Ethernet, I2C,
UART, 8K cache/SRAM, timers and GPIO.

However, I have seen references on this list that its predecessor, the
S3C4510 (aka. KS32C50100), which is used in the ARM E7T, has some hardware
bugs, esp. in the UART. I don't know if these have been sorted out or not in
the S3C4530 - maybe someone who's used it can comment.

Regarding porting to a custom platform - if you make your custom platform
similar to an already-existing platform by using the same chips, it is
pretty painless. It's not even that difficult porting to a custom platform
which differs quite a bit from the most similar already-existing platform.

Please note that neither I nor Jennic Ltd. have any commercial interest in
specifying Samsung over any other processor manufacturer.

Robert Cragie, Design Engineer
_______________________________________________________________
Jennic Ltd, Furnival Street, Sheffield, S1 4QT,  UK
http://www.jennic.com  Tel: +44 (0) 114 281 2655
_______________________________________________________________



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