text:
An integrated circuit, comprising a processor, an onboard system clock for generating a clock signal, and clock trim circuitry, the integrated circuit being configured to: (a) receive an external signal; (b) determine either the number of cycles of the clock signal during a predetermined number of cycles of the external signal, or the number of cycles of the external signal during a predetermined number of cycles of the clock signal; (c) store a trim value in the integrated circuit, the trim value having been determined on the basis of the determined number of cycles; and (d) use the trim value to control the internal clock frequency.
1. An integrated circuit, comprising a processor, an onboard system clock for generating a clock signal, and clock trim circuitry, the integrated circuit being configured to:
(a) receive an external signal;
(b) determine either the number of cycles of the clock signal during a predetermined number of cycles of the external signal, or the number of cycles of the external signal during a predetermined number of cycles of the clock signal;
(c) output the result of the determination of step (b) to an external source;
(d) receive a trim value from the external source;
(e) store the trim value in the integrated circuit, the trim value having been determined on the basis of the determined number of cycles;
(f) use the trim value to control the internal clock frequency.
2. An integrated circuit according to
3. An integrated circuit according to
4. An integrated circuit according to
5. An integrated circuit according to
6. An integrated circuit according to
7. An integrated circuit according to
8. An integrated circuit according to
9. An integrated circuit according to
10. An integrated circuit according to
11. An integrated circuit according to
12. An integrated circuit according to
13. An integrated circuit according to
14. An integrated circuit according to
15. An integrated circuit according to
16. An integrated circuit according to
The present invention relates to a mechanism for adjusting an onboard system clock on an integrated circuit.
The invention has primarily been developed for use in a printer that uses a plurality of security chips to ensure that modifications to operating parameters can only be modified in an authorized manner, and will be described with reference to this application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention can be applied to other fields in which analogous problems are faced.
Manufacturing a printhead that has relatively high resolution and print-speed raises a number of problems.
Difficulties in manufacturing pagewidth printheads of any substantial size arise due to the relatively small dimensions of standard silicon wafers that are used in printhead (or printhead module) manufacture. For example, if it is desired to make an 8 inch wide pagewidth printhead, only one such printhead can be laid out on a standard 8-inch wafer, since such wafers are circular in plan. Manufacturing a pagewidth printhead from two or more smaller modules can reduce this limitation to some extent, but raises other problems related to providing a joint between adjacent printhead modules that is precise enough to avoid visible artefacts (which would typically take the form of noticeable lines) when the printhead is used. The problem is exacerbated in relatively high-resolution applications because of the tight tolerances dictated by the small spacing between nozzles.
The quality of a joint region between adjacent printhead modules relies on factors including a precision with which the abutting ends of each module can be manufactured, the accuracy with which they can be aligned when assembled into a single printhead, and other more practical factors such as management of ink channels behind the nozzles. It will be appreciated that the difficulties include relative vertical displacement of the printhead modules with respect to each other.
Whilst some of these issues may be dealt with by careful design and manufacture, the level of precision required renders it relatively expensive to manufacture printheads within the required tolerances. It would be desirable to provide a solution to one or more of the problems associated with precision manufacture and assembly of multiple printhead modules to form a printhead, and especially a pagewidth printhead.
In some cases, it is desirable to produce a number of different printhead module types or lengths on a substrate to maximise usage of the substrate's surface area. However, different sizes and types of modules will have different numbers and layouts of print nozzles, potentially including different horizontal and vertical offsets. Where two or more modules are to be joined to form a single printhead, there is also the problem of dealing with different seam shapes between abutting ends of joined modules, which again may incorporate vertical or horizontal offsets between the modules. Printhead controllers are usually dedicated application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) designed for specific use with a single type of printhead module, that is used by itself rather than with other modules. It would be desirable to provide a way in which different lengths and types of printhead modules could be accounted for using a single printer controller.
Printer controllers face other difficulties when two or more printhead modules are involved, especially if it is desired to send dot data to each of the printheads directly (rather than via a single printhead connected to the controller). One concern is that data delivered to different length controllers at the same rate will cause the shorter of the modules to be ready for printing before any longer modules. Where there is little difference involved, the issue may not be of importance, but for large length differences, the result is that the bandwidth of a shared memory from which the dot data is supplied to the modules is effectively left idle once one of the modules is full and the remaining module or modules is still being filled. It would be desirable to provide a way of improving memory bandwidth usage in a system comprising a plurality of printhead modules of uneven length.
In any printing system that includes multiple nozzles on a printhead or printhead module, there is the possibility of one or more of the nozzles failing in the field, or being inoperative due to manufacturing defect. Given the relatively large size of a typical printhead module, it would be desirable to provide some form of compensation for one or more "dead" nozzles. Where the printhead also outputs fixative on a per-nozzle basis, it is also desirable that the fixative is provided in such a way that dead nozzles are compensated for.
A printer controller can take the form of an integrated circuit, comprising a processor and one or more peripheral hardware units for implementing specific data manipulation functions. A number of these units and the processor may need access to a common resource such as memory. One way of arbitrating between multiple access requests for a common resource is timeslot arbitration, in which access to the resource is guaranteed to a particular requestor during a predetermined timeslot.
One difficulty with this arrangement lies in the fact that not all access requests make the same demands on the resource in terms of timing and latency. For example, a memory read requires that data be fetched from memory, which may take a number of cycles, whereas a memory write can commence immediately. Timeslot arbitration does not take into account these differences, which may result in accesses being performed in a less efficient manner than might otherwise be the case. It would be desirable to provide a timeslot arbitration scheme that improved this efficiency as compared with prior art timeslot arbitration schemes.
Also of concern when allocating resources in a timeslot arbitration scheme is the fact that the priority of an access request may not be the same for all units. For example, it would be desirable to provide a timeslot arbitration scheme in which one requestor (typically the memory) is granted special priority such that its requests are dealt with earlier than would be the case in the absence of such priority.
In systems that use a memory and cache, a cache miss (in which an attempt to load data or an instruction from a cache fails) results in a memory access followed by a cache update. It is often desirable when updating the cache in this way to update data other than that which was actually missed. A typical example would be a cache miss for a byte resulting in an entire word or line of the cache associated with that byte being updated. However, this can have the effect of tying up bandwidth between the memory (or a memory manager) and the processor where the bandwidth is such that several cycles are required to transfer the entire word or line to the cache. It would be desirable to provide a mechanism for updating a cache that improved cache update speed and/or efficiency.
Most integrated circuits an externally provided signal as (or to generate) a clock, often provided from a dedicated clock generation circuit. This is often due to the difficulties of providing an onboard clock that can operate at a speed that is predictable. Manufacturing tolerances of such on-board clock generation circuitry can result in clock rates that vary by a factor of two, and operating temperatures can increase this margin by an additional factor of two. In some cases, the particular rate at which the clock operates is not of particular concern. However, where the integrated circuit will be writing to an internal circuit that is sensitive to the time over which a signal is provided, it may be undesirable to have the signal be applied for too long or short a time. For example, flash memory is sensitive to being written too for too long a period. It would be desirable to provide a mechanism for adjusting a rate of an on-chip system clock to take into account the impact of manufacturing variations on clockspeed.
One form of attacking a secure chip is to induce (usually by increasing) a clock speed that takes the logic outside its rated operating frequency. One way of doing this is to reduce the temperature of the integrated circuit, which can cause the clock to race. Above a certain frequency, some logic will start malfunctioning. In some cases, the malfunction can be such that information on the chip that would otherwise be secure may become available to an external connection. It would be desirable to protect an integrated circuit from such attacks.
In an integrated circuit comprising non-volatile memory, a power failure can result in unintentional behaviour. For example, if an address or data becomes unreliable due to falling voltage supplied to the circuit but there is still sufficient power to cause a write, incorrect data can be written. Even worse, the data (incorrect or not) could be written to the wrong memory. The problem is exacerbated with multi-word writes. It would be desirable to provide a mechanism for reducing or preventing spurious writes when power to an integrated circuit is failing.
In an integrated circuit, it is often desirable to reduce unauthorised access to the contents of memory. This is particularly the case where the memory includes a key or some other form of security information that allows the integrated circuit to communicate with another entity (such as another integrated circuit, for example) in a secure manner. It would be particularly advantageous to prevent attacks involving direct probing of memory addresses by physically investigating the chip (as distinct from electronic or logical attacks via manipulation of signals and power supplied to the integrated circuit).
It is also desirable to provide an environment where the manufacturer of the integrated circuit (or some other authorised entity) can verify or authorize code to be run on an integrated circuit.
Another desideratum would be the ability of two or more entities, such as integrated circuits, to communicate with each other in a secure manner. It would also be desirable to provide a mechanism for secure communication between a first entity and a second entity, where the two entities, whilst capable of some form of secure communication, are not able to establish such communication between themselves.
In a system that uses resources (such as a printer, which uses inks) it may be desirable to monitor and update a record related to resource usage. Authenticating ink quality can be a major issue, since the attributes of inks used by a given printhead can be quite specific. Use of incorrect ink can result in anything from misfiring or poor performance to damage or destruction of the printhead. It would therefore be desirable to provide a system that enables authentication of the correct ink being used, as well as providing various support systems secure enabling refilling of ink cartridges.
In a system that prevents unauthorized programs from being loaded onto or run on an integrated circuit, it can be laborious to allow developers of software to access the circuits during software development. Enabling access to integrated circuits of a particular type requires authenticating software with a relatively high-level key. Distributing the key for use by developers is inherently unsafe, since a single leak of the key outside the organization could endanger security of all chips that use a related key to authorize programs. Having a small number of people with high-security clearance available to authenticate programs for testing can be inconvenient, particularly in the case where frequent incremental changes in programs during development require testing. It would be desirable to provide a mechanism for allowing access to one or more integrated circuits without risking the security of other integrated circuits in a series of such integrated circuits.
In symmetric key security, a message, denoted by M, is plaintext. The process of transforming M into ciphertext C, where the substance of M is hidden, is called encryption. The process of transforming C back into M is called decryption. Referring to the encryption function as E, and the decryption function as D, we have the following identities:
Therefore the following identity is true:
A symmetric encryption algorithm is one where:
In most symmetric algorithms, K1 equals K2. However, even if K1 does not equal K2, given that one key can be derived from the other, a single key K can suffice for the mathematical definition. Thus:
The security of these algorithms rests very much in the key K. Knowledge of K allows anyone to encrypt or decrypt. Consequently K must remain a secret for the duration of the value of M. For example, M may be a wartime message "My current position is grid position 123-456". Once the war is over the value of M is greatly reduced, and if K is made public, the knowledge of the combat unit's position may be of no relevance whatsoever. The security of the particular symmetric algorithm is a function of two things: the strength of the algorithm and the length of the key.
An asymmetric encryption algorithm is one where:
These algorithms are also called public-key because one key K1 can be made public. Thus anyone can encrypt a message (using K1) but only the person with the corresponding decryption key (K2) can decrypt and thus read the message.
In most cases, the following identity also holds:
This identity is very important because it implies that anyone with the public key K1 can see M and know that it came from the owner of K2. No-one else could have generated C because to do so would imply knowledge of K2. This gives rise to a different application, unrelated to encryption—digital signatures.
A number of public key cryptographic algorithms exist. Most are impractical to implement, and many generate a very large C for a given M or require enormous keys. Still others, while secure, are far too slow to be practical for several years. Because of this, many public key systems are hybrid—a public key mechanism is used to transmit a symmetric session key, and then the session key is used for the actual messages.
All of the algorithms have a problem in terms of key selection. A random number is simply not secure enough. The two large primes p and q must be chosen carefully—there are certain weak combinations that can be factored more easily (some of the weak keys can be tested for). But nonetheless, key selection is not a simple matter of randomly selecting 1024 bits for example. Consequently the key selection process must also be secure.
Symmetric and asymmetric schemes both suffer from a difficulty in allowing establishment of multiple relationships between one entity and a two or more others, without the need to provide multiple sets of keys. For example, if a main entity wants to establish secure communications with two or more additional entities, it will need to maintain a different key for each of the additional entities. For practical reasons, it is desirable to avoid generating and storing large numbers of keys. To reduce key numbers, two or more of the entities may use the same key to communicate with the main entity. However, this means that the main entity cannot be sure which of the entities it is communicating with. Similarly, messages from the main entity to one of the entities can be decrypted by any of the other entities with the same key. It would be desirable if a mechanism could be provided to allow secure communication between a main entity and one or more other entities that overcomes at least some of the shortcomings of prior art.
In a system where a first entity is capable of secure communication of some form, it may be desirable to establish a relationship with another entity without providing the other entity with any information related the first entity's security features. Typically, the security features might include a key or a cryptographic function. It would be desirable to provide a mechanism for enabling secure communications between a first and second entity when they do not share the requisite secret function, key or other relationship to enable them to establish trust.
A number of other aspects, features, preferences and embodiments are disclosed in the Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiment below.
In accordance with the invention, there is provided an integrated circuit, comprising a processor, an onboard system clock for generating a clock signal, and clock trim circuitry, the integrated circuit being configured to:
Preferably, the integrated circuit is configured to, between steps (b) and (c):
Preferably, the integrated circuit includes non-volatile memory, and (c) includes storing the trim value in the memory. More preferably, the memory is flash RAM.
In a preferred form step (d) includes loading the trim value from the memory into a register and using the trim value in the register to control a frequency of the internal clock.
In a preferred form, the trim value is determined and stored permanently in the integrated circuit. More preferably, the circuit includes one or more fuses that are intentionally blown following step (c), thereby preventing the stored trim value from subsequently being changed.
In a preferred embodiment, the system clock further includes a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), an output frequency of which is controlled by the trim value. More preferably, the integrated circuit further includes a digital to analog convertor configured to convert the trim value to a voltage and supply the voltage to an input of the VCO, thereby to control the output frequency of the VCO.
Preferably, the integrated circuit is configured to operate under conditions in which the signal for which the number of cycles is being determined is at a considerably higher frequency than the other signal.
More preferably, the integrated circuit is configured to operate when a ratio of the number of cycles determined in step (b) and the predetermined number of cycles is greater than about 2. It is particularly preferred that the ratio is greater than about 4.
Preferably, the integrated circuit is disposed in a package having an external pin for receiving the external signal. More preferably, the pin is a serial communication pin configurable for serial communication when the trim value is not being set.
Preferably, the trim value was also determined on the basis of a compensation factor that took into account a temperature of the integrated circuit when the number of cycles are being determined.
Preferably, the trim value received was determined by the external source, the external source having determined the trim value including a compensation factor based on a temperature of the integrated circuit when the number of cycles are being determined.
Preferably, the trim value is determined by performing a number of iterations of determining the number of cycles, and averaging the determined number.
Preferred and other embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
It will be appreciated that the detailed description that follows takes the form of a highly detailed design of the invention, including supporting hardware and software. A high level of detailed disclosure is provided to ensure that one skilled in the art will have ample guidance for implementing the invention.
Imperative phrases such as "must", "requires", "necessary" and "important" (and similar language) should be read as being indicative of being necessary only for the preferred embodiment actually being described. As such, unless the opposite is clear from the context, imperative wording should not be interpreted as such. Nothing in the detailed description is to be understood as limiting the scope of the invention, which is intended to be defined as widely as is defined in the accompanying claims.
Indications of expected rates, frequencies, costs, and other quantitative values are exemplary and estimated only, and are made in good faith. Nothing in this specification should be read as implying that a particular commercial embodiment is or will be capable of a particular performance level in any measurable area.
It will be appreciated that the principles, methods and hardware described throughout this document can be applied to other fields. Much of the security-related disclosure, for example, can be applied to many other fields that require secure communications between entities, and certainly has application far beyond the field of printers.
System Overview
The preferred of the present invention is implemented in a printer using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) printheads. The printer can receive data from, for example, a personal computer such as an IBM compatible PC or Apple computer. In other embodiments, the printer can receive data directly from, for example, a digital still or video camera. The particular choice of communication link is not important, and can be based, for example, on USB, Firewire, Bluetooth or any other wireless or hardwired communications protocol.
Print System Overview
3 Introduction
This document describes the SoPEC (Small office home office Print Engine Controller) ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) suitable for use in, for example, SoHo printer products. The SoPEC ASIC is intended to be a low cost solution for bi-lithic printhead control, replacing the multichip solutions in larger more professional systems with a single chip. The increased cost competitiveness is achieved by integrating several systems such as a modified PEC1 printing pipeline, CPU control system, peripherals and memory sub-system onto one SoC ASIC, reducing component count and simplifying board design.
This section will give a general introduction to Memjet printing systems, introduce the components that make a bi-lithic printhead system, describe possible system architectures and show how several SoPECs can be used to achieve A3 and A4 duplex printing. The section "SoPEC ASIC" describes the SoC SoPEC ASIC, with subsections describing the CPU, DRAM and Print Engine Pipeline subsystems. Each section gives a detailed description of the blocks used and their operation within the overall print system. The final section describes the bi-lithic printhead construction and associated implications to the system due to its makeup.
4 Nomenclature
4.1 Bi-lithic Printhead Notation
A bi-lithic based printhead is constructed from 2 printhead ICs of varying sizes. The notation M:N is used to express the size relationship of each IC, where M specifies one printhead IC in inches and N specifies the remaining printhead IC in inches.
The 'SoPEC/MoPEC Bilithic Printhead Reference' document [10] contains a description of the bi-lithic printhead and related terminology.
4.2 Definitions
The following terms are used throughout this specification:
The following acronyms and abbreviations are used in this specification
In general the pseudocode examples use C like statements with some exceptions.
Symbol and naming convections used for pseudocode.
In general register naming uses the C style conventions with capitalization to denote word delimiters. Signals use RTL style notation where underscore denote word delimiters. There is a direct translation between both convention. For example the CmdSourceFifo register is equivalent to cmd_source_fifo signal.
4.5 State Machine Notation
State machines should be described using the pseudocode notation outlined above. State machine descriptions use the convention of underline to indicate the cause of a transition from one state to another and plain text (no underline) to indicate the effect of the transition i.e. signal transitions which occur when the new state is entered.
A sample state machine is shown in
5 Printing Considerations
A bi-lithic printhead produces 1600 dpi bi-level dots. On low-diffusion paper, each ejected drop forms a 22.5 μm diameter dot. Dots are easily produced in isolation, allowing dispersed-dot dithering to be exploited to its fullest. Since the bi-lithic printhead is the width of the page and operates with a constant paper velocity, color planes are printed in perfect registration, allowing ideal dot-on-dot printing. Dot-on-dot printing minimizes 'muddying' of midtones caused by inter-color bleed.
A page layout may contain a mixture of images, graphics and text. Continuous-tone (contone) images and graphics are reproduced using a stochastic dispersed-dot dither. Unlike a clustered-dot (or amplitude-modulated) dither, a dispersed-dot (or frequency-modulated) dither reproduces high spatial frequencies (i.e. image detail) almost to the limits of the dot resolution, while simultaneously reproducing lower spatial frequencies to their full color depth, when spatially integrated by the eye.
A stochastic dither matrix is carefully designed to be free of objectionable low-frequency patterns when tiled across the image. As such its size typically exceeds the minimum size required to support a particular number of intensity levels (e.g. 16ū16ū8 bits for 257 intensity levels).
Human contrast sensitivity peaks at a spatial frequency of about 3 cycles per degree of visual field and then falls off logarithmically, decreasing by a factor of 100 beyond about 40 cycles per degree and becoming immeasurable beyond 60 cycles per degree [25][25]. At a normal viewing distance of 12 inches (about 300 mm), this translates roughly to 200–300 cycles per inch (cpi) on the printed page, or 400–600 samples per inch according to Nyquist's theorem.
In practice, contone resolution above about 300 ppi is of limited utility outside special applications such as medical imaging. Offset printing of magazines, for example, uses contone resolutions in the range 150 to 300 ppi. Higher resolutions contribute slightly to color error through the dither.
Black text and graphics are reproduced directly using bi-level black dots, and are therefore not anti-aliased (i.e. low-pass filtered) before being printed. Text should therefore be supersampled beyond the perceptual limits discussed above, to produce smoother edges when spatially integrated by the eye. Text resolution up to about 1200 dpi continues to contribute to perceived text sharpness (assuming low-diffusion paper, of course).
A Netpage printer, for example, may use a contone resolution of 267 ppi (i.e. 1600 dpi/6), and a black text and graphics resolution of 800 dpi. A high end office or departmental printer may use a contone resolution of 320 ppi (1600 dpi/5) and a black text and graphics resolution of 1600 dpi. Both formats are capable of exceeding the quality of commercial (offset) printing and photographic reproduction.
6 Document Data Flow
6.1 Considerations
Because of the page-width nature of the bi-lithic printhead, each page must be printed at a constant speed to avoid creating visible artifacts. This means that the printing speed can't be varied to match the input data rate. Document rasterization and document printing are therefore decoupled to ensure the printhead has a constant supply of data. A page is never printed until it is fully rasterized. This can be achieved by storing a compressed version of each rasterized page image in memory. This decoupling also allows the RIP(s) to run ahead of the printer when rasterizing simple pages, buying time to rasterize more complex pages.
Because contone color images are reproduced by stochastic dithering, but black text and line graphics are reproduced directly using dots, the compressed page image format contains a separate foreground bi-level black layer and background contone color layer. The black layer is composited over the contone layer after the contone layer is dithered (although the contone layer has an optional black component). A final layer of Netpage tags (in infrared or black ink) is optionally added to the page for printout.
At 267 ppi for example, a A4 page (8.26 inchesū11.7 inches) of contone CMYK data has a size of 26.3 MB. At 320 ppi, an A4 page of contone data has a size of 37.8 MB. Using lossy contone compression algorithms such as JPEG [27], contone images compress with a ratio up to 10:1 without noticeable loss of quality, giving compressed page sizes of 2.63 MB at 267 ppi and 3.78 MB at 320 ppi.
At 800 dpi, a A4 page of bi-level data has a size of 7.4 MB. At 1600 dpi, a Letter page of bi-level data has a size of 29.5 MB. Coherent data such as text compresses very well. Using lossless bi-level compression algorithms such as SMG4 fax as discussed in Section 22.214.171.124.1, ten-point plain text compresses with a ratio of about 50:1. Lossless bi-level compression across an average page is about 20:1 with 10:1 possible for pages which compress poorly. The requirement for SoPEC is to be able to print text at 10:1 compression. Assuming 10:1 compression gives compressed page sizes of 0.74 MB at 800 dpi, and 2.95 MB at 1600 dpi.
Once dithered, a page of CMYK contone image data consists of 116 MB of bi-level data. Using lossless bi-level compression algorithms on this data is pointless precisely because the optimal dither is stochastic—i.e. since it introduces hard-to-compress disorder.
Netpage tag data is optionally supplied with the page image. Rather than storing a compressed bi-level data layer for the Netpage tags, the tag data is stored in its raw form. Each tag is supplied up to 120 bits of raw variable data (combined with up to 56 bits of raw fixed data) and covers up to a 6 mmū6 mm area (at 1600 dpi). The absolute maximum number of tags on a A4 page is 15,540 when the tag is only 2 mmū2 mm (each tag is 126 dotsū126 dots, for a total coverage of 148 tagsū105 tags). 15,540 tags of 128 bits per tag gives a compressed tag page size of 0.24 MB.
The multi-layer compressed page image format therefore exploits the relative strengths of lossy JPEG contone image compression, lossless bi-level text compression, and tag encoding. The format is compact enough to be storage-efficient, and simple enough to allow straightforward real-time expansion during printing.
Since text and images normally don't overlap, the normal worst-case page image size is image only, while the normal best-case page image size is text only. The addition of worst case Netpage tags adds 0.24 MB to the page image size. The worst-case page image size is text over image plus tags. The average page size assumes a quarter of an average page contains images. Table 1 shows data sizes for compressed Letter page for these different options.
The Host PC rasterizes and compresses the incoming document on a page by page basis. The page is restructured into bands with one or more bands used to construct a page. The compressed 25 data is then transferred to the SoPEC device via the USB link. A complete band is stored in SoPEC embedded memory. Once the band transfer is complete the SoPEC device reads the compressed data, expands the band, normalizes contone, bi-level and tag data to 1600 dpi and transfers the resultant calculated dots to the bi-lithic printhead.
The document data flow is
The SoPEC device can print a full resolution page with 6 color planes. Each of the color planes can be generated from compressed data through any channel (either JPEG compressed, bi-level SMG4 fax compressed, tag data generated, or fixative channel created) with a maximum number of 6 data channels from page RIP to bi-lithic printhead color planes.
The mapping of data channels to color planes is programmable, this allows for multiple color planes in the printhead to map to the same data channel to provide for redundancy in the printhead to assist dead nozzle compensation.
Also a data channel could be used to gate data from another data channel. For example in stencil mode, data from the bilevel data channel at 1600 dpi can be used to filter the contone data channel at 320 dpi, giving the effect of 1600 dpi contone image.
6.3 Page Considerations Due to SoPEC
The SoPEC device typically stores a complete page of document data on chip. The amount of storage available for compressed pages is limited to 2 Mbytes, imposing a fixed maximum on compressed page size. A comparison of the compressed image sizes in Table 2 indicates that SoPEC would not be capable of printing worst case pages unless they are split into bands and printing commences before all the bands for the page have been downloaded. The page sizes in the table are shown for comparison purposes and would be considered reasonable for a professional level printing system. The SoPEC device is aimed at the consumer level and would not be required to print pages of that complexity. Target document types for the SoPEC device are shown Table 2.
If a document with more complex pages is required, the page RIP software in the host PC can determine that there is insufficient memory storage in the SoPEC for that document. In such cases the RIP software can take two courses of action. It can increase the compression ratio until the compressed page size will fit in the SoPEC device, at the expense of document quality, or divide the page into bands and allow SoPEC to begin printing a page band before all bands for that page are downloaded. Once SoPEC starts printing a page it cannot stop, if SoPEC consumes compressed data faster than the bands can be downloaded a buffer underrun error could occur causing the print to fail. A buffer underrun occurs if a line synchronisation pulse is received before a line of data has been transferred to the printhead.
Other options which can be considered if the page does not fit completely into the compressed page store are to slow the printing or to use multiple SoPECs to print parts of the page. A Storage SoPEC (Section 7.2.5) could be added to the system to provide guaranteed bandwidth data delivery. The print system could also be constructed using an ISI-Bridge chip (Section 7.2.6) to provide guaranteed data delivery.
7 Memjet Printer Architecture
The SoPEC device can be used in several printer configurations and architectures.
In the general sense every SoPEC based printer architecture will contain:
Some example printer configurations as outlined in Section 7.2. The various system components are outlined briefly in Section 7.1.
7.1 System Components
7.1.1 SoPEC Print Engine Controller
The SoPEC device contains several system on a chip (SoC) components, as well as the print engine pipeline control application specific logic.
22.214.171.124 Print Engine Pipeline (PEP) Logic
The PEP reads compressed page store data from the embedded memory, optionally decompresses the data and formats it for sending to the printhead. The print engine pipeline functionality includes expanding the page image, dithering the contone layer, compositing the black layer over the contone layer, rendering of Netpage tags, compensation for dead nozzles in the printhead, and sending the resultant image to the bi-lithic printhead.
184.108.40.206 Embedded CPU
SoPEC contains an embedded CPU for general purpose system configuration and management. The CPU performs page and band header processing, motor control and sensor monitoring (via the GPIO) and other system control functions. The CPU can perform buffer management or report buffer status to the host. The CPU can optionally run vendor application specific code for general print control such as paper ready monitoring and LED status update.
184.108.40.206 Embedded Memory Buffer
A 2.5 Mbyte embedded memory buffer is integrated onto the SoPEC device, of which approximately 2 Mbytes are available for compressed page store data. A compressed page is divided into one or more bands, with a number of bands stored in memory. As a band of the page is consumed by the PEP for printing a new band can be downloaded. The new band may be for the current page or the next page.
Using banding it is possible to begin printing a page before the complete compressed page is downloaded, but care must be taken to ensure that data is always available for printing or a buffer underrun may occur.
An Storage SoPEC acting as a memory buffer (Section 7.2.5) or an ISI-Bridge chip with attached DRAM (Section 7.2.6) could be used to provide guaranteed data delivery.
220.127.116.11 Embedded USB 1.1 Device
The embedded USB 1.1 device accepts compressed page data and control commands from the host PC, and facilitates the data transfer to either embedded memory or to another SoPEC device in multi-SoPEC systems.
7.1.2 Bi-lithic Printhead
The printhead is constructed by abutting 2 printhead ICs together. The printhead ICs can vary in size from 2 inches to 8 inches, so to produce an A4 printhead several combinations are possible. For example two printhead ICs of 7 inches and 3 inches could be used to create a A4 printhead (the notation is 7:3). Similarly 6 and 4 combination (6:4), or 5:5 combination. For an A3 printhead it can be constructed from 8:6 or an 7:7 printhead IC combination. For photographic printing smaller printheads can be constructed.
7.1.3 LSS Interface Bus
Each SoPEC device has 2 LSS system buses for communication with QA devices for system authentication and ink usage accounting. The number of QA devices per bus and their position in the system is unrestricted with the exception that PRINTER_QA and INK_QA devices should be on separate LSS busses.
7.1.4 QA Devices
Each SoPEC system can have several QA devices. Normally each printing SoPEC will have an associated PRINTER_QA. Ink cartridges will contain an INK_QA chip. PRINTER_QA and INK_QA devices should be on separate LSS busses. All QA chips in the system are physically identical with flash memory contents defining PRINTER_QA from INK_QA chip.
7.1.5 ISI Interface
The Inter-SoPEC Interface (ISI) provides a communication channel between SoPECs in a multi-SoPEC system. The ISIMaster can be SoPEC device or an ISI-Bridge chip depending on the printer configuration. Both compressed data and control commands are transferred via the interface.
7.1.6 ISI-Bridge Chip
A device, other than a SoPEC with a USB connection, which provides print data to a number of slave SoPECs. A bridge chip will typically have a high bandwidth connection, such as USB2.0, Ethernet or IEEE1394, to a host and may have an attached external DRAM for compressed page storage. A bridge chip would have one or more ISI interfaces. The use of multiple ISI buses would allow the construction of independent print systems within the one printer. The ISI-Bridge would be the ISIMaster for each of the ISI buses it interfaces to.
7.2 Possible SoPEC Systems
Several possible SoPEC based system architectures exist. The following sections outline some possible architectures. It is possible to have extra SoPEC devices in the system used for DRAM storage. The QA chip configurations shown are indicative of the flexibility of LSS bus architecture, but not limited to those configurations.
7.2.1 A4 Simplex with 1 SoPEC Device
7.2.2 A4 Duplex with 2 SoPEC Devices
The SoPEC connected to the USB is the ISIMaster SoPEC, the remaining SoPEC is an ISISlave. The ISIMaster receives all the compressed page data for both SoPECs and re-distributes the compressed data over the Inter-SoPEC Interface (ISI) bus.
It may not be possible to print an A4 page every 2 seconds in this configuration since the USB 1.1 connection to the host may not have enough bandwidth. An alternative would be for each SoPEC to have its own USB 1.1 connection. This would allow a faster average print speed.
7.2.3 A3 Simplex with 2 SoPEC Devices
It may not be possible to print an A3 page every 2 seconds in this configuration since the USB 1.1 connection to the host will only have enough bandwidth to supply 2 Mbytes every 2 seconds. Pages which require more than 2 MBytes every 2 seconds will therefore print more slowly. An alternative would be for each SoPEC to have its own USB 1.1 connection. This would allow a faster average print speed.
7.2.4 A3 Duplex with 4 SoPEC Devices
It may not be possible to print an A3 page every 2 seconds in this configuration since the USB 1.1 connection to the host will only have enough bandwidth to supply 2 Mbytes every 2 seconds. Pages which require more than 2 MBytes every 2 seconds will therefore print more slowly. An alternative would be for each SoPEC or set of SoPECs on the same side of the page to have their own USB 1.1 connection (as ISISlaves may also have direct USB connections to the host). This would allow a faster average print speed.
7.2.5 SoPEC DRAM Storage Solution: A4 Simplex with 1 Printing SoPEC and 1 Memory SoPEC
Extra SoPECs can be used for DRAM storage e.g. in
7.2.6 ISI-Bridge Chip Solution: A3 Duplex System with 4 SoPEC Devices
An alternative to having a ISI-Bridge chip would be for each SoPEC or each set of SoPECs on the same side of a page to have their own USB 1.1 connection. This would allow a faster average print speed.
8 Page Format and Printflow
When rendering a page, the RIP produces a page header and a number of bands (a non-blank page requires at least one band) for a page. The page header contains high level rendering parameters, and each band contains compressed page data. The size of the band will depend on the memory available to the RIP, the speed of the RIP, and the amount of memory remaining in SoPEC while printing the previous band(s).
Each compressed band contains a mandatory band header, an optional bi-level plane, optional sets of interleaved contone planes, and an optional tag data plane (for Netpage enabled applications). Since each of these planes is optional1, the band header specifies which planes are included with the band.
A single SoPEC has maximum rendering restrictions as follows:
The requirement for single-sided A4 single SoPEC printing is
If the page contains rendering parameters that exceed these specifications, then the RIP or the Host PC must split the page into a format that can be handled by a single SoPEC.
In the general case, the SoPEC CPU must analyze the page and band headers and generate an appropriate set of register write commands to configure the units in SoPEC for that page. The various bands are passed to the destination SoPEC(s) to locations in DRAM determined by the host.
The host keeps a memory map for the DRAM, and ensures that as a band is passed to a SoPEC, it is stored in a suitable free area in DRAM. Each SoPEC is connected to the ISI bus or USB bus via its Serial communication Block (SCB). The SoPEC CPU configures the SCB to allow compressed data bands to pass from the USB or ISI through the SCB to SoPEC DRAM.
SoPEC has an addressing mechanism that permits circular band memory allocation, thus facilitating easy memory management. However it is not strictly necessary that all bands be stored together. As long as the appropriate registers in SoPEC are set up for each band, and a given band is contiguous2, the memory can be allocated in any way. 2 Contiguous allocation also includes wrapping around in SoPEC's band store memory.
8.1 Print Engine Example Page Format
This section describes a possible format of compressed pages expected by the embedded CPU in SoPEC. The format is generated by software in the host PC and interpreted by embedded software in SoPEC. This section indicates the type of information in a page format structure, but implementations need not be limited to this format. The host PC can optionally perform the majority of the header processing.
The compressed format and the print engines are designed to allow real-time page expansion during printing, to ensure that printing is never interrupted in the middle of a page due to data underrun.
The page format described here is for a single black bi-level layer, a contone layer, and a Netpage tag layer. The black bi-level layer is defined to composite over the contone layer.
The black bi-level layer consists of a bitmap containing a 1-bit opacity for each pixel. This black layer matte has a resolution which is an integer or non-integer factor of the printer's dot resolution. The highest supported resolution is 1600 dpi, i.e. the printer's full dot resolution.
The contone layer, optionally passed in as YCrCb, consists of a 24-bit CMY or 32-bit CMYK color for each pixel. This contone image has a resolution which is an integer or non-integer factor of the printer's dot resolution. The requirement for a single SoPEC is to support 1 side per 2 seconds A4/Letter printing at a resolution of 267 ppi, i.e. one-sixth the printer's dot resolution.
Non-integer scaling can be performed on both the contone and bi-level images. Only integer scaling can be performed on the tag data.
The black bi-level layer and the contone layer are both in compressed form for efficient storage in the printer's internal memory.
8.1.1 Page Structure
A single SoPEC is able to print with full edge bleed for Letter and A3 via different stitch part combinations of the bi-lithic printhead. It imposes no margins and so has a printable page area which corresponds to the size of its paper. The target page size is constrained by the printable page area, less the explicit (target) left and top margins specified in the page description. These relationships are illustrated below.
8.1.2 Compressed Page Format
Apart from being implicitly defined in relation to the printable page area, each page description is complete and self-contained. There is no data stored separately from the page description to which the page description refers.3 The page description consists of a page header which describes the size and resolution of the page, followed by one or more page bands which describe the actual page content. 3 SoPEC relies on dither matrices and tag structures to have already been set up, but these are not considered to be part of a general page format. It is trivial to extend the page format to allow exact specification of dither matrices and tag structures.
184.108.40.206 Page Header
Table 3 shows an example format of a page header.
The page header contains a signature and version which allow the CPU to identify the page header format. If the signature and/or version are missing or incompatible with the CPU, then the CPU can reject the page.
The contone flags define how many contone layers are present, which typically is used for defining whether the contone layer is CMY or CMYK. Additionally, if the color planes are CMY, they can be optionally stored as YCrCb, and further optionally color space converted from CMY directly or via RGB. Finally the contone data is specified as being either JPEG compressed or non-compressed.
The page header defines the resolution and size of the target page. The bi-level and contone layers are clipped to the target page if necessary. This happens whenever the bi-level or contone scale factors are not factors of the target page width or height.
The target left, top, right and bottom margins define the positioning of the target page within the printable page area.
The tag parameters specify whether or not Netpage tags should be produced for this page and what orientation the tags should be produced at (landscape or portrait mode). The fixed tag data is also provided.
The contone, bi-level and tag layer parameters define the page size and the scale factors.
22.214.171.124 Band Format
Table 4 shows the format of the page band header.
The bi-level layer parameters define the height of the black band, and the size of its compressed band data. The variable-size black data follows the page band header.
The contone layer parameters define the height of the contone band, and the size of its compressed page data. The variable-size contone data follows the black data.
The tag band data is the set of variable tag data half-lines as required by the tag encoder. The format of the tag data is found in Section 26.5.2. The tag band data follows the contone data.
Table 5 shows the format of the variable-size compressed band data which follows the page band header.
The start of each variable-size segment of band data should be aligned to a 256-bit DRAM word boundary.
The following sections describe the format of the compressed bi-level layers and the compressed contone layer. Section 26.5.1 on page 410 describes the format of the tag data structures.
220.127.116.11 Bi-level Data Compression
The (typically 1600 dpi) black bi-level layer is losslessly compressed using Silverbrook Modified Group 4 (SMG4) compression which is a version of Group 4 Facsimile compression [22] without Huffman and with simplified run length encodings. Typically compression ratios exceed 10:1. The encoding are listed in Table 6 and Table 7.
SMG4 has a pass through mode to cope with local negative compression. Pass through mode is activated by a special runlengh code. Pass through mode continues to either end of line or for a pre-programmed number of bits, whichever is shorter. The special run-length code is always executed as a run-length code, followed by pass through. The pass through escape code is a medium length run-length with a run of less than or equal to 31.
Since the compression is a bitstream, the encodings are read right (least significant bit) to left (most significant bit). The run lengths given as RRRR in Table are read in the same way (least significant bit at the right to most significant bit at the left).
Each band of bi-level data is optionally self contained. The first line of each band therefore is based on a 'previous' blanck line or the last line of the previous band.
18.104.22.168.1 Group 3 and 4 Facsimile Compression
The Group 3 Facsimile compression algorithm [22] losslessly compresses bi-level data for transmission over slow and noisy telephone lines. The bi-level data represents scanned black text and graphics on a white background, and the algorithm is tuned for this class of images (it is explicitly not tuned, for example, for halftoned bi-level images). The 1D Group 3 algorithm runlength-encodes each scanline and then Huffman-encodes the resulting runlengths. Runlengths in the range 0 to 63 are coded with terminating codes. Runlengths in the range 64 to 2623 are coded with make-up codes, each representing a multiple of 64, followed by a terminating code. Runlengths exceeding 2623 are coded with multiple make-up codes followed by a terminating code. The Huffman tables are fixed, but are separately tuned for black and white runs (except for make-up codes above 1728, which are common). When possible, the 2D Group 3 algorithm encodes a scanline as a set of short edge deltas (0, ▒1, ▒2, ▒3) with reference to the previous scanline. The delta symbols are entropy-encoded (so that the zero delta symbol is only one bit long etc.) Edges within a 2D-encoded line which can't be delta-encoded are runlength-encoded, and are identified by a prefix. 1D- and 2D-encoded lines are marked differently. 1D-encoded lines are generated at regular intervals, whether actually required or not, to ensure that the decoder can recover from line noise with minimal image degradation. 2D Group 3 achieves compression ratios of up to 6:1 [32].
The Group 4 Facsimile algorithm [22] losslessly compresses bi-level data for transmission over error-free communications lines (i.e. the lines are truly error-free, or error-correction is done at a lower protocol level). The Group 4 algorithm is based on the 2D Group 3 algorithm, with the essential modification that since transmission is assumed to be error-free, 1D-encoded lines are no longer generated at regular intervals as an aid to error-recovery. Group 4 achieves compression ratios ranging from 20:1 to 60:1 for the CCITT set of test images [32].
The design goals and performance of the Group 4 compression algorithm qualify it as a compression algorithm for the bi-level layers. However, its Huffman tables are tuned to a lower scanning resolution (100–400 dpi), and it encodes runlengths exceeding 2623 awkwardly.
184.108.40.206 Contone Data Compression
The contone layer (CMYK) is either a non-compressed bytestream or is compressed to an interleaved JPEG bytestream. The JPEG bytestream is complete and self-contained. It contains all data required for decompression, including quantization and Huffman tables.
The contone data is optionally converted to YCrCb before being compressed (there is no specific advantage in color-space converting if not compressing). Additionally, the CMY contone pixels are optionally converted (on an individual basis) to RGB before color conversion using R=255-C, G=255-M, B=255-Y. Optional bitwise inversion of the K plane may also be performed. Note that this CMY to RGB conversion is not intended to be accurate for display purposes, but rather for the purposes of later converting to YCrCb. The inverse transform will be applied before printing.
188.8.131.52.1 JPEG Compression
The JPEG compression algorithm [27] lossily compresses a contone image at a specified quality level. It introduces imperceptible image degradation at compression ratios below 5:1, and negligible image degradation at compression ratios below 10:1 [33].
JPEG typically first transforms the image into a color space which separates luminance and chrominance into separate color channels. This allows the chrominance channels to be subsampled without appreciable loss because of the human visual system's relatively greater sensitivity to luminance than chrominance. After this first step, each color channel is compressed separately.
The image is divided into 8ū8 pixel blocks. Each block is then transformed into the frequency domain via a discrete cosine transform (DCT). This transformation has the effect of concentrating image energy in relatively lower-frequency coefficients, which allows higher-frequency coefficients to be more crudely quantized. This quantization is the principal source of compression in JPEG.
Further compression is achieved by ordering coefficients by frequency to maximize the likelihood of adjacent zero coefficients, and then runlength-encoding runs of zeroes. Finally, the runlengths and non-zero frequency coefficients are entropy coded. Decompression is the inverse process of compression.
22.214.171.124.2 Non-compressed Format
If the contone data is non-compressed, it must be in a block-based format bytestream with the same pixel order as would be produced by a JPEG decoder. The bytestream therefore consists of a series of 8ū8 block of the original image, starting with the top left 8ū8 block, and working horizontally across the page (as it will be printed) until the top rightmost 8ū8 block, then the next row of 8ū8 blocks (left to right) and so on until the lower row of 8ū8 blocks (left to right). Each 8ū8 block consists of 64 8-bit pixels for color plane 0 (representing 8 rows of 8 pixels in the order top left to bottom right) followed by 64 8-bit pixels for color plane 1 and so on for up to a maximum of 4 color planes.
If the original image is not a multiple of 8 pixels in X or Y, padding must be present (the extra pixel data will be ignored by the setting of margins).
184.108.40.206.3 Compressed Format
If the contone data is compressed the first memory band contains JPEG headers (including tables) plus MCUs (minimum coded units). The ratio of space between the various color planes in the JPEG stream is 1:1:1:1. No subsampling is permitted. Banding can be completely arbitrary i.e there can be multiple JPEG images per band or 1 JPEG image divided over multiple bands. The break between bands is only memory alignment based.
22.214.171.124.4 Conversion of RGB to YCrCb (in RIP)
YCrCb is defined as per CCIR 601-1 [24] except that Y, Cr and Cb are normalized to occupy all 256 levels of an 8-bit binary encoding and take account of the actual hardware implementation of the inverse transform within SoPEC.
The exact color conversion computation is as follows:
Y, Cr and Cb are obtained by rounding to the nearest integer. There is no need for saturation since ranges of Y*, Cr* and Cb* after rounding are [0–255], [1–255] and [1–255] respectively. Note that full accuracy is possible with 24 bits. See [14] for more information.
SoPEC ASIC
9 Overview
The Small Office Home Office Print Engine Controller (SoPEC) is a page rendering engine ASIC that takes compressed page images as input, and produces decompressed page images at up to 6 channels of bi-level dot data as output. The bi-level dot data is generated for the Memjet bi-lithic printhead. The dot generation process takes account of printhead construction, dead nozzles, and allows for fixative generation.
A single SoPEC can control 2 bi-lithic printheads and up to 6 color channels at 10,000 lines/sec5, equating to 30 pages per minute. A single SoPEC can perform full-bleed printing of A3, A4 and Letter pages. The 6 channels of colored ink are the expected maximum in a consumer SOHO, or office Bi-lithic printing environment:
SoPEC is color space agnostic. Although it can accept contone data as CMYX or RGBX, where X is an optional 4th channel, it also can accept contone data in any print color space. Additionally, SoPEC provides a mechanism for arbitrary mapping of input channels to output channels, including combining dots for ink optimization, generation of channels based on any number of other channels etc. However, inputs are typically CMYK for contone input, K for the bi-level input, and the optional Netpage tag dots are typically rendered to an infra-red layer. A fixative channel is typically generated for fast printing applications.
SoPEC is resolution agnostic. It merely provides a mapping between input resolutions and output resolutions by means of scale factors. The expected output resolution is 1600 dpi, but SoPEC actually has no knowledge of the physical resolution of the Bi-lithic printhead.
SoPEC is page-length agnostic. Successive pages are typically split into bands and downloaded into the page store as each band of information is consumed and becomes free.
SoPEC provides an interface for synchronization with other SoPECs. This allows simple multi-SoPEC solutions for simultaneous A3/A4/Letter duplex printing. However, SoPEC is also capable of printing only a portion of a page image. Combining synchronization functionality with partial page rendering allows multiple SoPECs to be readily combined for alternative printing requirements including simultaneous duplex printing and wide format printing.
Table 8 lists some of the features and corresponding benefits of SoPEC.
The required printing rate for SoPEC is 30 sheets per minute with an inter-sheet spacing of 4 cm. To achieve a 30 sheets per minute print rate, this requires:
A printline for an A4 page consists of 13824 nozzles across the page [2]. At a system clock rate of 160 MHz 13824 dots of data can be generated in 86.4 seconds. Therefore data can be generated fast enough to meet the printing speed requirement. It is necessary to deliver this print data to the print-heads.
Printheads can be made up of 5:5, 6:4, 7:3 and 8:2 inch printhead combinations [2]. Print data is transferred to both print heads in a pair simultaneously. This means the longest time to print a line is determined by the time to transfer print data to the longest print segment. There are 9744 nozzles across a 7 inch printhead. The print data is transferred to the printhead at a rate of 106 MHz (⅔ of the system clock rate) per color plane. This means that it will take 91.9 μs to transfer a single line for a 7:3 printhead configuration. So we can meet the requirement of 30 sheets per minute printing with a 4 cm gap with a 7:3 printhead combination. There are 11160 across an 8 inch printhead. To transfer the data to the printhead at 106 MHz will take 105.3 μs. So an 8:2 printhead combination printing with an inter-sheet gap will print slower than 30 sheets per minute.
9.2 SoPEC Basic Architecture
From the highest point of view the SoPEC device consists of 3 distinct subsystems
9.2.1 CPU Subsystem
The CPU subsystem controls and configures all aspects of the other subsystems. It provides general support for interfacing and synchronising the external printer with the internal print engine. It also controls the low speed communication to the QA chips. The CPU subsystem contains various peripherals to aid the CPU, such as GPIO (includes motor control), interrupt controller, LSS Master and general timers. The Serial Communications Block (SCB) on the CPU subsystem provides a full speed USB1.1 interface to the host as well as an Inter SoPEC Interface (ISI) to other SoPEC devices.
9.2.2 DRAM Subsystem
The DRAM subsystem accepts requests from the CPU, Serial Communications Block (SCB) and blocks within the PEP subsystem. The DRAM subsystem (in particular the DIU) arbitrates the various requests and determines which request should win access to the DRAM. The DIU arbitrates based on configured parameters, to allow sufficient access to DRAM for all requesters. The DIU also hides the implementation specifics of the DRAM such as page size, number of banks, refresh rates etc.
9.2.3 Print Engine Pipeline (PEP) Subsystem
The Print Engine Pipeline (PEP) subsystem accepts compressed pages from DRAM and renders them to bi-level dots for a given print line destined for a printhead interface that communicates directly with up to 2 segments of a bi-lithic printhead.
The first stage of the page expansion pipeline is the CDU, LBD and TE. The CDU expands the JPEG-compressed contone (typically CMYK) layer, the LBD expands the compressed bi-level layer (typically K), and the TE encodes Netpage tags for later rendering (typically in IR or K ink). The output from the first stage is a set of buffers: the CFU, SFU, and TFU. The CFU and SFU buffers are implemented in DRAM.
The second stage is the HCU, which dithers the contone layer, and composites position tags and the bi-level spot0 layer over the resulting bi-level dithered layer. A number of options exist for the way in which compositing occurs. Up to 6 channels of bi-level data are produced from this stage. Note that not all 6 channels may be present on the printhead. For example, the printhead may be CMY only, with K pushed into the CMY channels and IR ignored. Alternatively, the position tags may be printed in K if IR ink is not available (or for testing purposes).
The third stage (DNC) compensates for dead nozzles in the printhead by color redundancy and error diffusing dead nozzle data into surrounding dots.
The resultant bi-level 6 channel dot-data (typically CMYK-IRF) is buffered and written out to a set of line buffers stored in DRAM via the DWU.
Finally, the dot-data is loaded back from DRAM, and passed to the printhead interface via a dot FIFO. The dot FIFO accepts data from the LLU at the system clock rate (pclk), while the PHI removes data from the FIFO and sends it to the printhead at a rate of ⅔ times the system clock rate (see Section 9.1).
9.3 SoPEC Block Description
SoPEC must address
SoPEC has a unified address space with the CPU capable of addressing all CPU-subsystem and PCU-bus accessible registers (in PEP) and all locations in DRAM. The CPU generates byte-aligned addresses for the whole of SoPEC.
22 bits are sufficient to byte address the whole SoPEC address space.
9.4.1 DRAM Addressing Scheme
The embedded DRAM is composed of 256-bit words. However the CPU-subsystem may need to write individual bytes of DRAM. Therefore it was decided to make the DIU byte addressable. 22 bits are required to byte address 20 Mbits of DRAM.
Most blocks read or write 256-bit words of DRAM. Therefore only the top 17 bits i.e. bits 21 to 5 are required to address 256-bit word aligned locations.
The exceptions are
All DIU accesses must be within the same 256-bit aligned DRAM word.
9.4.2 PEP Unit DRAM Addressing
PEP Unit configuration registers which specify DRAM locations should specify 256-bit aligned DRAM addresses i.e. using address bits 21:5. Legacy blocks from PEC1 e.g. the LBD and TE may need to specify 64-bit aligned DRAM addresses if these reused blocks DRAM addressing is difficult to modify. These 64-bit aligned addresses require address bits 21:3. However, these 64-bit aligned addresses should be programmed to start at a 256-bit DRAM word boundary.
Unlike PEC1, there are no constraints in SoPEC on data organization in DRAM except that all data structures must start on a 256-bit DRAM boundary. If data stored is not a multiple of 256-bits then the last word should be padded.
9.4.3 CPU Subsystem Bus Addressed Registers
The CPU subsystem bus supports 32-bit word aligned read and write accesses with variable access timings. See section 11.4 for more details of the access protocol used on this bus. The CPU subsystem bus does not currently support byte reads and writes but this can be added at a later date if required by imported IP.
9.4.4 PCU Addressed Registers in PEP
The PCU only supports 32-bit register reads and writes for the PEP blocks. As the PEP blocks only occupy a subsection of the overall address map and the PCU is explicitly selected by the MMU when a PEP block is being accessed the PCU does not need to perform a decode of the higher-order address bits. See Table 11 for the PEP subsystem address map.
9.5 SoPEC Memory Map
9.5.1 Main Memory Map
The system wide memory map is shown in
9.5.2 CPU-bus Peripherals Address Map
The address mapping for the peripherals attached to the CPU-bus is shown in Table 10 below. The MMU performs the decode of cpu_adr[21:12] to generate the relevant cpu_block_select signal for each block. The addressed blocks decode however many of the lower order bits of cpu_adr[11:2] are required to address all the registers within the block.
The PEP blocks are addressed via the PCU. From
So for the case of the HCU, its addresses range from 0x7000 to 0x7FFF within the PEP subsystem or from 0x0002—7000 to 0x0002—7FFF in the overall system.
As outlined in Section 9.1, SoPEC has a requirement to print 1 side every 2 seconds i.e. 30 sides per minute.
9.6.1 Page Buffering
Approximately 2 Mbytes of DRAM are reserved for compressed page buffering in SoPEC. If a page is compressed to fit within 2 Mbyte then a complete page can be transferred to DRAM before printing. However, the time to transfer 2 Mbyte using USB 1.1 is approximately 2 seconds. The worst case cycle time to print a page then approaches 4 seconds. This reduces the worst-case print speed to 15 pages per minute.
9.6.2 Band Buffering
The SoPEC page-expansion blocks support the notion of page banding. The page can be divided into bands and another band can be sent down to SoPEC while we are printing the current band. Therefore we can start printing once at least one band has been downloaded.
The band size granularity should be carefully chosen to allow efficient use of the USB bandwidth and DRAM buffer space. It should be small enough to allow seamless 30 sides per minute printing but not so small as to introduce excessive CPU overhead in orchestrating the data transfer and parsing the band headers. Band-finish interrupts have been provided to notify the CPU of free buffer space. It is likely that the host PC will supervise the band transfer and buffer management instead of the SoPEC CPU.
If SoPEC starts printing before the complete page has been transferred to memory there is a risk of a buffer underrun occurring if subsequent bands are not transferred to SoPEC in time e.g. due to insufficient USB bandwidth caused by another USB peripheral consuming USB bandwidth. A buffer underrun occurs if a line synchronisation pulse is received before a line of data has been transferred to the printhead and causes the print job to fail at that line. If there is no risk of buffer underrun then printing can safely start once at least one band has been downloaded.
If there is a risk of a buffer underrun occurring due to an interruption of compressed page data transfer, then the safest approach is to only start printing once we have loaded up the data for a complete page. This means that a worst case latency in the region of 2 seconds (with USB1.1) will be incurred before printing the first page. Subsequent pages will take 2 seconds to print giving us the required sustained printing rate of 30 sides per minute.
A Storage SoPEC (Section 7.2.5) could be added to the system to provide guaranteed bandwidth data delivery. The print system could also be constructed using an ISI-Bridge chip (Section 7.2.6) to provide guaranteed data delivery.
The most efficient page banding strategy is likely to be determined on a per page/ print job basis and so SoPEC will support the use of bands of any size.
10 SoPEC Use Cases
10.1 Introduction
This chapter is intended to give an overview of a representative set of scenarios or use cases which SoPEC can perform. SoPEC is by no means restricted to the particular use cases described and not every SoPEC system is considered here.
In this chapter we discuss SoPEC use cases under four headings:
Use cases for both single and multi-SoPEC systems are outlined.
Some tasks may be composed of a number of sub-tasks.
The realtime requirements for SoPEC software tasks are discussed in "11 Central Processing Unit (CPU)" under Section 11.3 Realtime requirements.
10.2 Normal Operation in a Single SoPEC System with USB Host Connection
SoPEC operation is broken up into a number of sections which are outlined below. Buffer management in a SoPEC system is normally performed by the host.
10.2.1 Powerup
Powerup describes SoPEC initialisation following an external reset or the watchdog timer system reset.
A typical powerup sequence is:
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block (chapter 16). Normally the CPU sub-system and the DRAM will be put in sleep mode but the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) will still be enabled.
Wakeup describes SoPEC recovery from sleep mode with the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) still enabled. In a single SoPEC system, wakeup can be initiated following a USB reset from the SCB.
A typical USB wakeup sequence is:
This sequence is typically performed at the start of a print job following powerup or wakeup:
Buffer management in a SoPEC system is normally performed by the host.
First page, first band download and processing:
Remaining bands download and processing:
One approach is to only start printing once we have loaded up the data for a complete page. If we start printing before the complete page has been transferred to memory we run the risk of a buffer underrun occurring because compressed page data was not transferred to SoPEC in time e.g. due to insufficient USB bandwidth caused by another USB peripheral consuming USB bandwidth.
As for first page download, performed during printing of current page.
10.2.7 Between Bands
When the finished band flags are asserted band related registers in the CDU, LBD, TE need to be re-programmed before the subsequent band can be printed. This can be via PCU commands from DRAM. Typically only 3–5 commands per decompression unit need to be executed. These registers can also be reprogrammed directly by the CPU or most likely by updating from shadow registers. The finished band flag interrupts the CPU to tell the CPU that the area of memory associated with the band is now free.
10.2.8 During Page Print
Typically during page printing ink usage is communicated to the QA chips.
These operations are typically performed when the page is finished:
These operations are typically performed before printing the next page:
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block described in Section 16.
In a multi-SoPEC system the host generally manages program and compressed page download to all the SoPECs. Inter-SoPEC communication is over the ISI link which will add a latency.
In the case of a multi-SoPEC system with just one USB 1.1 connection, the SoPEC with the USB connection is the ISIMaster. The ISI-bridge chip is the ISIMaster in the case of an ISI-Bridge SoPEC configuration. While it is perfectly possible for an ISISlave to have a direct USB connection to the host we do not treat this scenario explicitly here to avoid possible confusion.
In a multi-SoPEC system one of the SoPECs will be the PrintMaster. This SoPEC must manage and control sensors and actuators e.g. motor control. These sensors and actuators could be distributed over all the SoPECs in the system. An ISIMaster SoPEC may also be the PrintMaster SoPEC.
In a multi-SoPEC system each printing SoPEC will generally have its own PRINTER_QA chip (or at least access to a PRINTER_QA chip that contains the SoPEC's SoPEC_id_key) to validate operating parameters and ink usage. The results of these operations may be communicated to the PrintMaster SoPEC.
In general the ISIMaster may need to be able to:
As the ISI is an insecure interface commands issued over the ISI are regarded as user mode commands. Supervisor mode code running on the SoPEC CPUs will allow or disallow these commands. The software protocol needs to be constructed with this in mind.
The ISIMaster will initiate all communication with the ISISlaves.
SoPEC operation is broken up into a number of sections which are outlined below.
10.3.1 Powerup
Powerup describes SoPEC initialisation following an external reset or the watchdog timer system reset.
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block [16]. Normally the CPU sub-system and the DRAM will be put in sleep mode but the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) will still be enabled.
Wakeup describes SoPEC recovery from sleep mode with the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) still enabled. For an ISIMaster SoPEC connected to the host via USB, wakeup can be initiated following a USB reset from the SCB.
A typical USB wakeup sequence is:
This sequence is typically performed at the start of a print job following powerup or wakeup:
Buffer management in a SoPEC system is normally performed by the host.
Poll ISISlaves for DRAM status and download compressed data to ISISlaves.
Remaining first page bands download and processing:
Poll ISISlaves for DRAM status and download compressed data to ISISlaves.
10.3.5 Start Printing
As for first page download, performed during printing of current page.
10.3.7 Between Bands
When the finished band flags are asserted band related registers in the CDU, LBD and TE need to be re-programmed. This can be via PCU commands from DRAM. Typically only 3–5 commands per decompression unit need to be executed. These registers can also be reprogrammed directly by the CPU or by updating from shadow registers. The finished band flag interrupts to the CPU, tell the CPU that the area of memory associated with the band is now free.
10.3.8 During Page Print
Typically during page printing ink usage is communicated to the QA chips.
These operations are typically performed when the page is finished:
These operations are typically performed before printing the next page:
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block [16]. This may be as a result of a command from the host or as a result of a timeout.
This section the outline typical operation of an ISISlave SoPEC in a multi-SoPEC system. The ISIMaster can be another SoPEC or an ISI-Bridge chip. The ISISlave communicates with the host either via the ISIMaster or using a direct connection such as USB. For this use case we consider only an ISISlave that does not have a direct host connection. Buffer management in a SoPEC system is normally performed by the host.
10.4.1 Powerup
Powerup describes SoPEC initialisation following an external reset or the watchdog timer system reset.
A typical powerup sequence is:
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block [16]. Normally the CPU sub-system and the DRAM will be put in sleep mode but the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) will still be enabled.
Wakeup describes SoPEC recovery from sleep mode with the SCB and power-safe storage (PSS) still enabled. In an ISISlave SoPEC, wakeup can be initiated following an ISI reset from the SCB.
A typical ISI wakeup sequence is:
This sequence is typically performed at the start of a print job following powerup or wakeup:
Buffer management in a SoPEC system is normally performed by the host via the ISI.
Remaining first page bands download and processing:
As for first band download, performed during printing of current page.
10.4.7 Between Bands
When the finished band flags are asserted band related registers in the CDU, LBD and TE need to be re-programmed. This can be via PCU commands from DRAM. Typically only 3–5 commands per decompression unit need to be executed. These registers can also be reprogrammed directly by the CPU or by updating from shadow registers. The finished band flag interrupts to the CPU tell the CPU that the area of memory associated with the band is now free.
10.4.8 During Page Print
Typically during page printing ink usage is communicated to the QA chips.
These operations are typically performed when the page is finished:
These operations are typically performed before printing the next page:
Stop motor control, if attached to this ISISlave, when requested by PrintMaster.
10.4.12 Powerdown
In this mode SoPEC is no longer powered.
The CPU can put different sections of SoPEC into sleep mode by writing to registers in the CPR block [16]. This may be as a result of a command from the host or ISIMaster or as a result of a timeout.
Please see the 'SoPEC Security Overview' [9] document for a more complete description of SoPEC security issues. The SoPEC boot operation is described in the ROM chapter of the SoPEC hardware design specification, Section 17.2.
10.5.1 Communication with the QA Chips
Communication between SoPEC and the QA chips (i.e. INK_QA and PRINTER_QA) will take place on at least a per power cycle and per page basis. Communication with the QA chips has three principal purposes: validating the presence of genuine QA chips (i.e the printer is using approved consumables), validation of the amount of ink remaining in the cartridge and authenticating the operating parameters for the printer. After each page has been printed, SoPEC is expected to communicate the number of dots fired per ink plane to the QA chipset. SoPEC may also initiate decoy communications with the QA chips from time to time.
Known Weaknesses
Known Weaknesses:
Known Weaknesses
The SoPEC IC will be used in a range of printers with different capabilities (e.g. A3/A4 printing, printing speed, resolution etc.). It is expected that some printers will also have a software upgrade capability which would allow a user to purchase a license that enables an upgrade in their printer's capabilities (such as print speed). To facilitate this it must be possible to securely store the operating parameters in the PRINTER_QA chip, to securely communicate these parameters to the SoPEC and to securely reprogram the parameters in the event of an upgrade. Note that each printing SoPEC (as opposed to a SoPEC that is only used for the storage of data) will have its own PRINTER_QA chip (or at least access to a PRINTER_QA that contains the SoPEC's SoPEC_id_key). Therefore both ISIMaster and ISISlave SoPECs will need to authenticate operating parameters.
Known Weaknesses:
There are many miscellaneous use cases such as the following examples. Software running on the SoPEC CPU or host will decide on what actions to take in these scenarios.
10.6.1 Disconnect/Re-connect of QA Chips.
This sequence is typically performed when dead nozzle information needs to be updated by performing a printhead dead nozzle test.
System errors and security violations are reported to the SoPEC CPU and host. Software running on the SoPEC CPU or host will then decide what actions to take.
Silverbrook code authentication failure.
OEM code authentication failure.
Invalid QA chip(s).
MMU security violation interrupt.
Invalid address interrupt from PCU.
Watchdog timer interrupt.
Host PC does not acknowledge message that SoPEC is about to power down.
Printing errors are reported to the SoPEC CPU and host. Software running on the host or SoPEC CPU will then decide what actions to take.
Insufficient space available in SoPEC compressed band-store to download a band.
Insufficient ink to print.
Page not downloaded in time while printing.
JPEG decoder error interrupt.
The CPU block consists of the CPU core, MMU, cache and associated logic. The principal tasks for the program running on the CPU to fulfill in the system are:
To control the Print Engine Pipeline the CPU is required to provide a level of performance at least equivalent to a 16-bit Hitachi H8-3664 microcontroller running at 16 MHz. An as yet undetermined amount of additional CPU performance is needed to perform the other tasks, as well as to provide the potential for such activity as Netpage page assembly and processing, RIPing etc. The extra performance required is dominated by the signature verification task and the SCB (including the USB) management task. An operating system is not required at present. A number of CPU cores have been evaluated and the LEON P1754 is considered to be the most appropriate solution. A diagram of the CPU block is shown in
11.2 Definitions of I/OS
The SoPEC realtime requirements have yet to be fully determined but they may be split into three categories: hard, firm and soft
11.3.1 Hard Realtime Requirements
Hard requirements are tasks that must be completed before a certain deadline or failure to do so will result in an error perceptible to the user (printing stops or functions incorrectly). There are three hard realtime tasks:
Firm requirements are tasks that should be completed by a certain time or failure to do so will result in a degradation of performance but not an error. The majority of the CPU tasks for SoPEC fall into this category including all interactions with the QA chips, program authentication, page feeding, configuring PEP registers for a page or job, determining the firing pulse profile, communication of printer status to the host over the USB and the monitoring of ink usage. The authentication of downloaded programs and messages will be the most compute intensive operation the CPU will be required to perform. Initial investigations indicate that the LEON processor, running at 160 MHz, will easily perform three authentications in under a second.
Soft requirements are tasks that need to be done but there are only light time constraints on when they need to be done. These tasks are performed by the CPU when there are no pending higher priority tasks. As the SoPEC CPU is expected to be lightly loaded these tasks will mostly be executed soon after they are scheduled.
11.4 Bus Protocols
As can be seen from
11.4.1 AHB Bus
The LEON CPU core uses an AMBA2.0 AHB bus to communicate with memory and peripherals (usually via an APB bridge). See the AMBA specification [38], section 5 of the LEON users manual [37] and section 126.96.36.199 of this document for more details.
11.4.2 CPU to DIU Bus
This bus conforms to the DIU bus protocol described in Section 20.14.8. Note that the address bus used for DIU reads (i.e. cpu_adr(21:2)) is also that used for CPU subsystem with bus accesses while the write address bus (cpu_diu_wadr) and the read and write data buses (dram_cpu_data and cpu_diu_wdata) are private buses between the CPU and the DIU. The effective bus width differs between a read (256 bits) and a write (128 bits). As certain CPU instructions may require byte write access this will need to be supported by both the DRAM write buffer (in the AHB bridge) and the DIU. See section 220.127.116.11 for more details.
11.4.3 CPU Subsystem Bus
For access to the on-chip peripherals a simple bus protocol is used. The MMU must first determine which particular block is being addressed (and that the access is a valid one) so that the appropriate block select signal can be generated. During a write access CPU write data is driven out with the address and block select signals in the first cycle of an access. The addressed slave peripheral responds by asserting its ready signal indicating that it has registered the write data and the access can complete. The write data bus is common to all peripherals and is also used for CPU writes to the embedded DRAM. A read access is initiated by driving the address and select signals during the first cycle of an access. The addressed slave responds by placing the read data on its bus and asserting its ready signal to indicate to the CPU that the read data is valid. Each block has a separate point-to-point data bus for read accesses to avoid the need for a tri-stateable bus.
All peripheral accesses are 32-bit (Programming note: char or short C types should not be used to access peripheral registers). The use of the ready signal allows the accesses to be of variable length. In most cases accesses will complete in two cycles but three or four (or more) cycles accesses are likely for PEP blocks or IP blocks with a different native bus interface. All PEP blocks are accessed via the PCU which acts as a bridge. The PCU bus uses a similar protocol to the CPU subsystem bus but with the PCU as the bus master.
The duration of accesses to the PEP blocks is influenced by whether or not the PCU is executing commands from DRAM. As these commands are essentially register writes the CPU access will need to wait until the PCU bus becomes available when a register access has been completed. This could lead to the CPU being stalled for up to 4 cycles if it attempts to access PEP blocks while the PCU is executing a command. The size and probability of this penalty is sufficiently small to have any significant impact on performance.
In order to support user mode (i.e. OEM code) access to certain peripherals the CPU subsystem bus propagates the CPU function code signals (cpu_acode[1:0]). These signals indicate the type of address space (i.e. User/Supervisor and Program/Data) being accessed by the CPU for each access. Each peripheral must determine whether or not the CPU is in the correct mode to be granted access to its registers and in some cases (e.g. Timers and GPIO blocks) different access permissions can apply to different registers within the block. If the CPU is not in the correct mode then the violation is flagged by asserting the block's bus error signal (block_cpu_berr) with the same timing as its ready signal (block_cpu_rdy) which remains deasserted. When this occurs invalid read accesses should return 0 and write accesses should have no effect.
Each peripheral acts as a slave on the CPU subsystem bus and its behavior is described by the state machine in section 220.127.116.11
22.214.171.124 CPU Subsystem Bus Slave State Machine
CPU subsystem bus slave operation is described by the state machine in
When reading from a register that is less than 32 bits wide the CPU subsystems bus slave should return zeroes on the unused upper bits of the block cpu_data bus.
To support debug mode the contents of the register selected for debug observation, debug_reg, are always output on the block_cpu_data bus whenever a read access is not taking place. See section 11.8 for more details of debug operation.
The LEON processor is an open-source implementation of the IEEE-1754 standard (SPARC V8) instruction set. LEON is available from and actively supported by Gaisler Research (www.gaisler.com).
The following features of the LEON-2 processor will be utilised on SoPEC:
The standard release of LEON incorporates a number of peripherals and support blocks which will not be included on SoPEC. The LEON core as used on SoPEC will consist of: 1) the LEON integer unit, 2) the instruction and data caches (currently 1 kB each), 3) the cache control logic, 4) the AHB interface and 5) possibly the AHB controller (although this functionality may be implemented in the LEON AHB bridge).
The version of the LEON database that the SoPEC LEON components will be sourced from is LEON2-1.0.7 although later versions may be used if they offer worthwhile functionality or bug fixes that affect the SoPEC design.
The LEON core will be clocked using the system clock, pclk, and reset using the prst_n_section[1] signal. The ICU will assert all the hardware interrupts using the protocol described in section 11.9.
The LEON hardware multipliers and floating-point unit are not required. SoPEC will use the recommended 8 register window configuration.
Further details of the SPARC V8 instruction set and the LEON processor can be found in [36] and [37] respectively.
11.5.1 LEON Registers
Only two of the registers described in the LEON manual are implemented on SoPEC—the LEON configuration register and the Cache Control Register (CCR). The addresses of these registers are shown in Table 16. The configuration register bit fields are described below and the CCR is described in section 184.108.40.206.
188.8.131.52 LEON Configuration Register
The LEON configuration register allows runtime software to determine the settings of LEONs various configuration options. This is a read-only register whose value for the SoPEC ASIC will be 0x1071—8C00. Further descriptions of many of the bitfields can be found in the LEON manual. The values used for SoPEC are highlighted in bold for clarity.
Memory Management Units are typically used to protect certain regions of memory from invalid accesses, to perform address translation for a virtual memory system and to maintain memory page status (swapped-in, swapped-out or unmapped)
The SoPEC MMU is a much simpler affair whose function is to ensure that all regions of the SoPEC memory map are adequately protected. The MMU does not support virtual memory and physical addresses are used at all times. The SoPEC MMU supports a full 32-bit address space. The SoPEC memory map is depicted in
The MMU selects the relevant bus protocol and generates the appropriate control signals depending on the area of memory being accessed. The MMU is responsible for performing the address decode and generation of the appropriate block select signal as well as the selection of the correct block read bus during a read access. The MMU will need to support all of the bus transactions the CPU can produce including interrupt acknowledge cycles, aborted transactions etc. When an MMU error occurs (such as an attempt to access a supervisor mode only region when in user mode) a bus error is generated. While the LEON can recognise different types of bus error (e.g. data store error, instruction access error) it handles them in the same manner as it handles all traps i.e it will transfer control to a trap handler. No extra state information is be stored because of the nature of the trap. The location of the trap handler is contained in the TBR (Trap Base Register). This is the same mechanism as is used to handle interrupts.
11.6.1 CPU-bus Peripherals Address Map
The address mapping for the peripherals attached to the CPU-bus is shown in Table 17 below. The MMU performs the decode of the high order bits to generate the relevant cpu_block_select signal. Apart from the PCU, which decodes the address space for the PEP blocks, each block only needs to decode as many bits of cpu_adr[11:2] as required to address all the registers within the block.
The embedded DRAM is broken into 8 regions, with each region defined by a lower and upper bound address and with its own access permissions;
The association of an area in the DRAM address space with a MMU region is completely under software control. Table 18 below gives one possible region mapping. Regions should be defined according to their access requirements and position in memory. Regions that share the same access requirements and that are contiguous in memory may be combined into a single region. The example below is purely for indicative purposes—real mappings are likely to differ significantly from this. Note that the RegionBottom and RegionTop fields in this example include the DRAM base address offset (0x4000—0000) which is not required when programming the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers. For more details, see 184.108.40.206 and 18.104.22.168.
As shown in
MMU Internal Registers (0x0001—0000 to 0x0001—0FFF): The MMU is responsible for controlling the accesses to its own internal registers and will only allow data reads and writes (no instruction fetches) from supervisor data space. All other accesses will result in the mmu_cpu_berr signal being asserted in accordance with the CPU native bus protocol.
CPU Subsystem Peripheral Registers (0x0001—1000 to 0x0001_FFFF): Each peripheral block will control the access types allowed. Every peripheral will allow supervisor data accesses (both read and write) and some blocks (e.g. Timers and GPIO) will also allow user data space accesses as outlined in the relevant chapters of this specification. Neither supervisor nor user instruction fetch accesses are allowed to any block as it is not possible to execute code from peripheral registers.
The bus protocol is described in section 11.4.3.
PCU Mapped Registers (0x0002—0000 to 0x0002_BFFF): All of the PEP blocks registers which are accessed by the CPU via the PCU will inherit the access permissions of the PCU. These access permissions are hard wired to allow supervisor data accesses only and the protocol used is the same as for the CPU peripherals.
Unused address space (0x0002_C000 to 0x3FFF_FFFF and 0x4028—0000 to 0xFFFF_FFFF): All accesses to the unused portion of the address space will result in the mmu_cpu_berr signal being asserted in accordance with the CPU native bus protocol. These accesses will not propagate outside of the MMU i.e. no external access will be initiated.
11.6.4 Reset Exception Vector and Reference Zero Traps
When a reset occurs the LEON processor starts executing code from address 0x0000—0000. A common software bug is zero-referencing or null pointer de-referencing (where the program attempts to access the contents of address 0x0000—0000). To assist software debug the MMU will assert a bus error every time the locations 0x0000—0000 to 0x0000—000F (i.e. the first 4 words of the reset trap) are accessed after the reset trap handler has legitimately been retrieved immediately after reset.
11.6.5 MMU Configuration Registers
The MMU configuration registers include the RDU configuration registers and two LEON registers. Note that all the MMU configuration registers may only be accessed when the CPU is running in supervisor mode.
The 20 Mbit of embedded DRAM on SoPEC is arranged as 81920 words of 256 bits each. All region boundaries need to align with a 256-bit word. Thus only 17 bits are required for the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers. Note that the bottom 5 bits of the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers cannot be written to and read as '0' i.e. the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers represent byte-aligned DRAM addresses
Both the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers are inclusive i.e. the addresses in the registers are included in the region. Thus the size of a region is (RegionNTop−RegionNBottom)+1 DRAM words.
If DRAM regions overlap (there is no reason for this to be the case but there is nothing to prohibit it either) then only accesses allowed by all overlapping regions are permitted. That is if a DRAM address appears in both Region1 and Region3 (for example) the cpu_acode of an access is checked against the access permissions of both regions. If both regions permit the access then it will proceed but if either or both regions do not permit the access then it will not be allowed.
The MMU does not support negatively sized regions i.e. the value of the RegionNTop register should always be greater than or equal to the value of the RegionNBottom register. If RegionNTop is lower in the address map than RegionNTop then the region is considered to be zero-sized and is ignored.
When both the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers for a region contain the same value the region is then simply one 256-bit word in length and this corresponds to the smallest possible active region.
188.8.131.52 Region Control Registers
Each memory region has a control register associated with it. The RegionNControl register is used to set the access conditions for the memory region bounded by the RegionNTop and RegionNBottom registers. Table 20 describes the function of each bit field in the RegionNControl registers. All bits in a RegionNControl register are both readable and writable by design. However, like all registers in the MMU, the RegionNControl registers can only be accessed by code running in supervisor mode.
The SPARC V8 architecture allows for a number of types of memory access error to be trapped. These trap types and trap handling in general are described in chapter 7 of the SPARC architecture manual [36]. However on the LEON processor only data_store_error and data_access_exception trap types will result from an external (to LEON) bus error. According to the SPARC architecture manual the processor will automatically move to the next register window (i.e. it decrements the current window pointer) and copies the program counters (PC and nPC) to two local registers in the new window. The supervisor bit in the PSR is also set and the PSR can be saved to another local register by the trap handler (this does not happen automatically in hardware). The ExceptionSource register aids the trap handler by identifying the source of an exception. Each bit in the ExceptionSource register is set when the relevant trap condition and should be cleared by the trap handler by writing a '1' to that bit position.
As can be seen from
126.96.36.199 LEON AHB Bridge
The LEON AHB bridge consists of an AHB bridge to DIU and an AHB to CPU subsystem bus bridge. The AHB bridge will convert between the AHB and the DIU and CPU subsystem bus protocols but the address decoding and enabling of an access happens elsewhere in the MMU. The AHB bridge will always be a slave on the AHB. Note that the AMBA signals from the LEON core are contained within the ahbso and ahbsi records. The LEON records are described in more detail in section 11.7. Glue logic may be required to assist with enabling memory accesses, endianness coherency, interrupts and other miscellaneous signalling.
The LEON AHB bridge must ensure that all CPU bus transactions are functionally correct and that the timing requirements are met. The AHB bridge also implements a 128-bit DRAM write buffer to improve the efficiency of DRAM writes, particularly for multiple successive writes to DRAM. The AHB bridge is also responsible for ensuring endianness coherency i.e. guaranteeing that the correct data appears in the correct position on the data buses (hrdata, cpu_dataout and cpu_mmu_wdata) for every type of access. This is a requirement because the LEON uses big-endian addressing while the rest of SoPEC is little-endian.
The LEON AHB bridge will assert request signals to the DIU if the MMU control block deems the access to be a legal access. The validity (i.e. is the CPU running in the correct mode for the address space being accessed) of an access is determined by the contents of the relevant RegionNControl register. As the SPARC standard requires that all accesses are aligned to their word size (i.e. byte, half-word, word or double-word) and so it is not possible for an access to traverse a 256-bit boundary (as required by the DIU). Invalid DRAM accesses are not propagated to the DIU and will result in an error response (ahbso.hresp='01') on the AHB. The DIU bus protocol is described in more detail in section 20.9. The DIU will return a 256-bit dataword on dram cpu_data[255:0] for every read access.
The CPU subsystem bus protocol is described in section 11.4.3. While the LEON AHB bridge performs the protocol translation between AHB and the CPU subsystem bus the select signals for each block are generated by address decoding in the CPU subsystem bus interface. The CPU subsystem bus interface also selects the correct read data bus, ready and error signals for the block being addressed and passes these to the LEON AHB bridge which puts them on the AHB bus.
It is expected that some signals (especially those external to the CPU block) will need to be registered here to meet the timing requirements. Careful thought will be required to ensure that overall CPU access times are not excessively degraded by the use of too many register stages.
220.127.116.11.1 DRAM Write Buffer
The DRAM write buffer improves the efficiency of DRAM writes by aggregating a number of CPU write accesses into a single DIU write access. This is achieved by checking to see if a CPU write is to an address already in the write buffer and if so the write is immediately acknowledged (i.e. the ahbsi.hready signal is asserted without any wait states) and the DRAM write buffer updated accordingly. When the CPU write is to a DRAM address other than that in the write buffer then the current contents of the write buffer are sent to the DIU (where they are placed in the posted write buffer) and the DRAM write buffer is updated with the address and data of the CPU write. The DRAM write buffer consists of a 128-bit data buffer, an 18-bit write address tag and a 16-bit write mask. Each bit of the write mask indicates the validity of the corresponding byte of the write buffer as shown in
The operation of the DRAM write buffer is summarised by the following set of rules:
The first transaction is a single word load ('LD'). The MMU (specifically the MMU control block) uses the first cycle of every access (i.e. the address phase of an AHB transaction) to determine whether or not the access is a legal access. The read request to the DIU is then asserted in the following cycle (assuming the access is a valid one) and is acknowledged by the DIU a cycle later. Note that the time from cpu_diu_rreq being asserted and diu_cpu_rack being asserted is variable as it depends on the DIU configuration and access patterns of DIU requestors. The AHB bridge will insert wait states until it sees the diu_cpu_rvalid signal is high, indicating the data ('LD1') on the dram_cpu_data bus is valid. The AHB bridge terminates the read access in the same cycle by asserting the ahbso.HREADY signal (together with an 'OKAY' HRESP code). The AHB bridge also selects the appropriate 32 bits ('RD1') from the 256-bit DRAM line data ('LD1') returned by the DIU corresponding to the word address given by A1.
The second transaction is an AHB two-beat incrementing burst issued by the LEON acache block in response to the execution of a double-word store instruction. As LEON is a big endian processor the address issued ('A2') during the address phase of the first beat of this transaction is the address of the most significant word of the double-word while the address for the second beat ('A3') is that of the least significant word i.e. A3=A2+4. The presence of the DRAM write buffer allows these writes to complete without the insertion of any wait states. This is true even when, as shown here, the DRAM write buffer needs to be flushed into the DIU posted write buffer, provided the DIU posted write buffer is empty. If the DIU posted write buffer is not empty (as would be signified by diu_cpu_write_rdy being low) then wait states would be inserted until it became empty. The cpu_diu_wdata buffer builds up the data to be written to the DIU over a number of transactions ('BD1' and 'BD2' here) while the cpu_diu_wmask records every byte that has been written to since the last flush—in this case the lowest word and then the second lowest word are written to as a result of the double-word store operation.
The final transaction shown here is a DRAM read caused by an ICache miss. Note that the pipelined nature of the AHB bus allows the address phase of this transaction to overlap with the final data phase of the previous transaction. All ICache misses appear as single word loads ('LD') on the AHB bus. In this case we can see that the DIU is slower to respond to this read request than to the first read request because it is processing the write access caused by the DRAM write buffer flush. The ICache refill will complete just after the window shown in
220.127.116.11 CPU Subsystem Bus Interface
The CPU Subsystem Interface block handles all valid accesses to the peripheral blocks that comprise the CPU Subsystem.
The CPU Subsystem Bus Interface block performs simple address decoding to select a peripheral and multiplexing of the returned signals from the various peripheral blocks. The base addresses used for the decode operation are defined in Table. Note that access to the MMU configuration registers are handled by the MMU Control Block rather than the CPU Subsystem Bus Interface block. The CPU Subsystem Bus Interface block operation is described by the following pseudocode:
The MMU Control Block determines whether every CPU access is a valid access. No more than one cycle is to be consumed in determining the validity of an access and all accesses must terminate with the assertion of either mmu_cpu_rdy or mmu_cpu_berr. To safeguard against stalling the CPU a simple bus timeout mechanism will be supported.
The MMU Control Block is responsible for the MMU's core functionality, namely determining whether or not an access to any part of the address map is valid. An access is considered valid if it is to a mapped area of the address space and if the CPU is running in the appropriate mode for that address space. Furthermore the MMU control block must correctly handle the special cases that are: an interrupt acknowledge cycle, a reset exception vector fetch, an access that crosses a 256-bit DRAM word boundary and a bus timeout condition. The following pseudocode shows the logic required to implement the MMU Control Block functionality. It does not deal with the timing relationships of the various signals—it is the designer's responsibility to ensure that these relationships are correct and comply with the different bus protocols. For simplicity the pseudocode is split up into numbered sections so that the functionality may be seen more easily.
It is important to note that the style used for the pseudocode will differ from the actual coding style used in the RTL implementation. The pseudocode is only intended to capture the required functionality, to clearly show the criteria that need to be tested rather than to describe how the implementation should be performed. In particular the different comparisons of the address used to determine which part of the memory map, which DRAM region (if applicable) and the permission checking should all be performed in parallel (with results ORed together where appropriate) rather than sequentially as the pseudocode implies.
PS0 Description: This first segment of code defines a number of constants and variables that are used elsewhere in this description. Most signals have been defined in the I/O descriptions of the MMU sub-blocks that precede this section of the document. The post_reset_state variable is used later (in section PS4) to determine if we should trap a null pointer access.
PS1 Description: This section is at the top of the hierarchy that determines the validity of an access. The address is tested to see which macro-region (i.e. Unused, CPU Subsystem or DRAM) it falls into or whether the reset exception vector is being accessed.
PS2 Description: Accesses to the large unused area of the address space are trapped by this section. No bus transactions are initiated and the mmu_cpu_berr signal is asserted.
PS3 Description: This section deals with accesses to CPU Subsystem peripherals, including the MMU itself. If the MMU registers are being accessed then no external bus transactions are required. Access to the MMU registers is only permitted if the CPU is making a data access from supervisor mode, otherwise a bus error is asserted and the access terminated. For non-MMU accesses then transactions occur over the CPU Subsystem Bus and each peripheral is responsible for determining whether or not the CPU is in the correct mode (based on the cpu_acode signals) to be permitted access to its registers. Note that all of the PEP registers are accessed via the PCU which is on the CPU Subsystem Bus.
PS4 Description: The only correct accesses to the locations beneath 0x00000010 are fetches of the reset trap handling routine and these should be the first accesses after reset. Here we trap all other accesses to these locations regardless of the CPU mode. The most likely cause of such an access will be the use of a null pointer in the program executing on the CPU.
PS5 Description: This large section of pseudocode simply checks whether the access is within the bounds of DRAM Region0 and if so whether or not the access is of a type permitted by the Region0Control register. If the access is permitted then a DRAM access is initiated. If the access is not of a type permitted by the Region0Control register then the access is terminated with a bus error.
PS6 Description: This final section of pseudocode deals with the special case of a bus timeout. This occurs when an access has been initiated but has not completed before the BusTimeout number of pclk cycles. While access to both DRAM and CPU/PEP Subsystem registers will take a variable number of cycles (due to DRAM traffic, PCU command execution or the different timing required to access registers in imported IP) each access should complete before a timeout occurs. Therefore it should not be possible to stall the CPU by locking either the CPU Subsystem or DIU buses.
However given the fatal effect such a stall would have it is considered prudent to implement bus timeout detection.
The version of LEON implemented on SoPEC features 1 kB of ICache and 1 kB of DCache. Both caches are direct mapped and feature 8 word lines so their data RAMs are arranged as 32ū256-bit and their tag RAMs as 32ū30-bit (itag) or 32ū32-bit (dtag). Like most of the rest of the LEON code used on SoPEC the cache controllers are taken from the leon2-1.0.7 release. The LEON cache controllers and cache RAMs have been modified to ensure that an entire 256-bit line is refilled at a time to make maximum use out of the memory bandwidth offered by the embedded DRAM organization (DRAM lines are also 256-bit). The data cache controller has also been modified to ensure that user mode code cannot access the DCache contents unless it is authorised to do so. A block diagram of the LEON CPU core as implemented on SoPEC is shown in
In this diagram dotted lines are used to indicate hierarchy and red items represent signals or wrappers added as part of the SoPEC modifications. LEON makes heavy use of VHDL records and the records used in the CPU core are described in Table 25. Unless otherwise stated the records are defined in the iface.vhd file (part of the LEON release) and this should be consulted for a complete breakdown of the record elements.
The LEON cache module consists of three components: the ICache controller (icache.vhd), the DCache controller (dcache.vhd) and the AHB bridge (acache.vhd) which translates all cache misses into memory requests on the AHB bus.
In order to enable full line refill operation a few changes had to be made to the cache controllers. The ICache controller was modified to ensure that whenever a location in the cache was updated (i.e. the cache was enabled and was being refilled from DRAM) all locations on that cache line had their valid bits set to reflect the fact that the full line was updated. The iline_rdy signal is asserted by the ICache controller when this happens and this informs the cache wrappers to update all locations in the idata RAM for that line.
A similar change was made to the DCache controller except that the entire line was only updated following a read miss and that existing write through operation was preserved. The DCache controller uses the dline_rdy signal to instruct the cache wrapper to update all locations in the ddata RAM for a line. An additional modification was also made to ensure that a double-word load instruction from a non-cached location would only result in one read access to the DIU i.e. the second read would be serviced by the data cache. Note that if the DCache is turned off then a double-word load instruction will cause two DIU read accesses to occur even though they will both be to the same 256-bit DRAM line.
The DCache controller was further modified to ensure that user mode code cannot access cached data to which it does not have permission (as determined by the relevant RegionNControl register settings at the time the cache line was loaded). This required an extra 2 bits of tag information to record the user read and write permissions for each cache line. These user access permissions can be updated in the same manner as the other tag fields (i.e. address and valid bits) namely by line refill, STA instruction or cache flush. The user access permission bits are checked every time user code attempts to access the data cache and if the permissions of the access do not agree with the permissions returned from the tag RAM then a cache miss occurs. As the MMU evaluates the access permissions for every cache miss it will generate the appropriate exception for the forced cache miss caused by the errant user code. In the case of a prohibited read access the trap will be immediate while a prohibited write access will result in a deferred trap. The deferred trap results from the fact that the prohibited write is committed to a write buffer in the DCache controller and program execution continues until the prohibited write is detected by the MMU which may be several cycles later. Because the errant write was treated as a write miss by the DCache controller (as it did not match the stored user access permissions) the cache contents were not updated and so remain coherent with the DRAM contents (which do not get updated because the MMU intercepted the prohibited write). Supervisor mode code is not subject to such checks and so has free access to the contents of the data cache.
In addition to AHB bridging, the ACache component also performs arbitration between ICache and DCache misses when simultaneous misses occur (the DCache always wins) and implements the Cache Control Register (CCR). The leon2-1.0.7 release is inconsistent in how it handles cacheability: For instruction fetches the cacheability (i.e. is the access to an area of memory that is cacheable) is determined by the ICache controller while the ACache determines whether or not a data access is cacheable. To further complicate matters the DCache controller does determine if an access resulting from a cache snoop by another AHB master is cacheable (Note that the SoPEC ASIC does not implement cache snooping as it has no need to do so). This inconsistency has been cleaned up in more recent LEON releases but is preserved here to minimise the number of changes to the LEON RTL. The cache controllers were modified to ensure that only DRAM accesses (as defined by the SoPEC memory map) are cached.
The only functionality removed as a result of the modifications was support for burst fills of the ICache. When enabled burst fills would refill an ICache line from the location where a miss occurred up to the end of the line. As the entire line is now refilled at once (when executing from DRAM) this functionality is no longer required. Furthermore more substantial modifications to the ICache controller would be needed if we wished to preserve this function without adversely affecting full line refills. The CCR was therefore modified to ensure that the instruction burst fetch bit (bit 16) was tied low and could not be written to.
220.127.116.11 LEON Cache Control Register
The CCR controls the operation of both the I and D caches. Note that the bitfields used on the SoPEC implementation of this register are based on the LEON v1.0.7 implementation and some bits have their values tied off. See section 4 of the LEON manual for a description of the LEON cache controllers.
The cache RAMs used in the leon2-1.0.7 release needed to be modified to support full line refills and the correct IBM macros also needed to be instantiated. Although they are described as RAMs throughout this document (for consistency), register arrays are actually used to implement the cache RAMs. This is because IBM SRAMs were not available in suitable configurations (offered configurations were too big) to implement either the tag or data cache RAMs. Both instruction and data tag RAMs are implemented using dual port (1 Read & 1 Write) register arrays and the clocked write-through versions of the register arrays were used as they most closely approximate the single port SRAM LEON expects to see.
126.96.36.199 Cache Tag RAM Wrappers
The itag and dtag RAMs differ only in their width—the itag is a 32ū30 array while the dtag is a 32ū32 array with the extra 2 bits being used to record the user access permissions for each line. When read using a LDA instruction both tags return 32-bit words. The tag fields are described in Table 27 and Table 28 below. Using the IBM naming conventions the register arrays used for the tag RAMs are called RA032ū30D2P2W1R1M3 for the itag and RA032ū32D2P2W1R1M3 for the dtag. The ibm_syncram wrapper used for the tag RAMs is a simple affair that just maps the wrapper ports on to the appropriate ports of the IBM register array and ensures the output data has the correct timing by registering it. The tag RAMs do not require any special modifications to handle full line refills.
The cache data RAM contains the actual cached data and nothing else. Both the instruction and data cache data RAMs are implemented using 8 32ū32-bit register arrays and some additional logic to support full line refills. Using the IBM naming conventions the register arrays used for the tag RAMs are called RA032ū32D2P2W1R1M3. The ibm_cdram_wrap wrapper used for the tag RAMs is shown in
To the cache controllers the cache data RAM wrapper looks like a 256ū32 single port SRAM (which is what they expect to see) with an input to indicate when a full line refill is taking place (the line_rdy signal). Internally the 8-bit address bus is split into a 5-bit lineaddress, which selects one of the 32 256-bit cache lines, and a 3-bit wordaddress which selects one of the 8 32-bit words on the cache line. Thus each of the 8 32ū32 register arrays contains one 32-bit word of each cache line. When a full line is being refilled (indicated by both the line_rdy and write signals being high) every register array is written to with the appropriate 32 bits from the linedatain bus which contains the 256-bit line returned by the DIU after a cache miss. When just one word of the cache line is to be written (indicated by the write signal being high while the line_rdy is low) then the wordaddress is used to enable the write signal to the selected register array only—all other write enable signals are kept low. The data cache controller handles byte and half-word write by means of a read-modify-write operation so writes to the cache data RAM are always 32-bit.
The wordaddress is also used to select the correct 32-bit word from the cache line to return to the LEON integer unit.
11.8 Realtime Debug Unit (RDU)
The RDU facilitates the observation of the contents of most of the CPU addressable registers in the SoPEC device in addition to some pseudo-registers in realtime. The contents of pseudo-registers, i.e. registers that are collections of otherwise unobservable signals and that do not affect the functionality of a circuit, are defined in each block as required. Many blocks do not have pseudo-registers and some blocks (e.g. ROM, PSS) do not make debug information available to the RDU as it would be of little value in realtime debug.
Each block that supports realtime debug observation features a DebugSelect register that controls a local mux to determine which register is output on the block's data bus (i.e. block_cpu_data). One small drawback with reusing the blocks data bus is that the debug data cannot be present on the same bus during a CPU read from the block. An accompanying active high block_cpu_debug_valid signal is used to indicate when the data bus contains valid debug data and when the bus is being used by the CPU. There is no arbitration for the bus as the CPU will always have access when required. A block diagram of the RDU is shown in
As there are no spare pins that can be used to output the debug data to an external capture device some of the existing I/Os will have a debug multiplexer placed in front of them to allow them be used as debug pins. Furthermore not every pin that has a debug mux will always be available to carry the debug data as they may be engaged in their primary purpose e.g. as a GPIO pin. The RDU therefore outputs a debug_cntrl signal with each debug data bit to indicate whether the mux associated with each debug pin should select the debug data or the normal data for the pin. The DebugPinSel1 and DebugPinSel2 registers are used to determine which of the 33 potential debug pins are enabled for debug at any particular time.
As it may not always be possible to output a full 32-bit debug word every cycle the RDU supports the outputting of an n-bit sub-word every cycle to the enabled debug pins. Each debug test would then need to be re-run a number of times with a different portion of the debug word being output on the n-bit sub-word each time. The data from each run should then be correlated to create a full 32-bit (or whatever size is needed) debug word for every cycle. The debug_data_valid and pclk_out signals will accompany every sub-word to allow the data to be sampled correctly. The pclk_out signal is sourced close to its output pad rather than in the RDU to minimise the skew between the rising edge of the debug data signals (which should be registered close to their output pads) and the rising edge of pclk_out.
As multiple debug runs will be needed to obtain a complete set of debug data the n-bit sub-word will need to contain a different bit pattern for each run. For maximum flexibility each debug pin has an associated DebugDataSrc register that allows any of the 32 bits of the debug data word to be output on that particular debug data pin. The debug data pin must be enabled for debug operation by having its corresponding bit in the DebugPinSel registers set for the selected debug data bit to appear on the pin.
The size of the sub-word is determined by the number of enabled debug pins which is controlled by the DebugPinSel registers. Note that the debug_data_valid signal is always output. Furthermore debug_cntrl[0] (which is configured by DebugPinSel1) controls the mux for both the debug_data_valid and pclk_out signals as both of these must be enabled for any debug operation. The mapping of debug_data_out[n] signals onto individual pins will take place outside the RDU.
This mapping is described in Table 30 below.
The interrupt controller unit (see chapter 14) generates an interrupt request by driving interrupt request lines with the appropriate interrupt level. LEON supports 15 levels of interrupt with level 15 as the highest level (the SPARC architecture manual [36] states that level 15 is non-maskable but we have the freedom to mask this if desired). The CPU will begin processing an interrupt exception when execution of the current instruction has completed and it will only do so if the interrupt level is higher than the current processor priority. If a second interrupt request arrives with the same level as an executing interrupt service routine then the exception will not be processed until the executing routine has completed.
When an interrupt trap occurs the LEON hardware will place the program counters (PC and nPC) into two local registers. The interrupt handler routine is expected, as a minimum, to place the PSR register in another local register to ensure that the LEON can correctly return to its pre-interrupt state. The 4-bit interrupt level (irl) is also written to the trap type (tt) field of the TBR (Trap Base Register) by hardware. The TBR then contains the vector of the trap handler routine the processor will then jump. The TBA (Trap Base Address) field of the TBR must have a valid value before any interrupt processing can occur so it should be configured at an early stage.
Interrupt pre-emption is supported while ET (Enable Traps) bit of the PSR is set. This bit is cleared during the initial trap processing. In initial simulations the ET bit was observed to be cleared for up to 30 cycles. This causes significant additional interrupt latency in the worst case where a higher priority interrupt arrives just as a lower priority one is taken.
The interrupt acknowledge cycles shown in
11.10 Boot Operation
See section 17.2 for a description of the SoPEC boot operation.
11.11 Software Debug
Software debug mechanisms are discussed in the "SoPEC Software Debug" document [15].
12 Serial Communications Block (SCB)
12.1 Overview
The Serial Communications Block (SCB) handles the movement of all data between the SoPEC and the host device (e.g. PC) and between master and slave SoPEC devices. The main components of the SCB are a Full-Speed (FS) USB Device Core, a FS USB Host Core, a Inter-SoPEC Interface (ISI), a DMA manager, the SCB Map and associated control logic. The need for these components and the various types of communication they provide is evident in a multi-SoPEC printer configuration.
12.1.1 Multi-SoPEC Systems
While single SoPEC systems are expected to form the majority of SoPEC systems the SoPEC device must also support its use in multi-SoPEC systems such as that shown in
126.96.36.199 ISIMaster Device
The ISIMaster is the only device that controls the common ISI lines (see
Systems with multiple SoPECs may have more than one host connection, for example there could be two SoPECs communicating with the external host over their FS USB links (this would of course require two USB cables to be connected), but still only one ISIMaster.
While it is not expected to be required, it is possible for a device to hand over its role as the ISIMaster to another device on the ISI i.e. the ISIMaster is not necessarily fixed.
22.214.171.124 PrintMaster Device
The PrintMaster device is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the print operation. This includes starting the print operation in all printing SoPECs and communicating status back to the external host. When the ISIMaster is a SoPEC device it is also likely to be the PrintMaster as well. There may only be one PrintMaster in a system and it is most likely to be a SoPEC device.
18.104.22.168 LineSyncMaster Device
The LineSyncMaster device generates the lsync pulse that all SoPECs in the system must synchronize their line outputs with. Any SoPEC in the system could act as a LineSyncMaster although the PrintMaster is probably the most likely candidate. It is possible that the LineSyncMaster may not be a SoPEC device at all—it could, for example, come from some OEM motor control circuitry. There may only be one LineSyncMaster in a system.
184.108.40.206 Storage Device
For certain printer types it may be realistic to use one SoPEC as a storage device without using its print engine capability—that is to effectively use it as an ISI-attached DRAM. A storage SoPEC would receive data from the ISIMaster (most likely to be an ISI-Bridge chip) and then distribute it to the other SoPECs as required. No other type of data flow (e.g. ISISlave->storage SoPEC->ISISlave) would need to be supported in such a scenario. The SCB supports this functionality at no additional cost because the CPU handles the task of transferring outbound data from the embedded DRAM to the ISI transmit buffer. The CPU in a storage SoPEC will have almost nothing else to do.
22.214.171.124 ISISlave Device
Multi-SoPEC systems will contain one or more ISISlave SoPECs. An ISISlave SoPEC is primarily used to generate dot data for the printhead IC it is driving. An ISISlave will not transmit messages on the ISI without first receiving permission to do so, via a ping packet (see section 22.214.171.124), from the ISIMaster
126.96.36.199 ISI-Bridge Device
SoPEC is targeted at the low-cost small office/home office (SoHo) market. It may also be used in future systems that target different market segments which are likely to have a high speed interface capability. A future device, known as an ISI-Bridge chip, is envisaged which will feature both a high speed interface (such as High-Speed (HS) USB, Ethernet or IEEE1394) and one or more ISI interfaces. The use of multiple ISI buses would allow the construction of independent print systems within the one printer. The ISI-Bridge would be the ISIMaster for each of the ISI buses it interfaces to.
188.8.131.52 External Host
The external host is most likely (but is not required) to be, a PC. Any system that can act as a USB host or that can interface to an ISI-Bridge chip could be the external host. In particular, with the development of USB On-The-Go (USB OTG), it is possible that a number of USB OTG enabled products such as PDAs or digital cameras will be able to directly interface with a SoPEC printer.
18.104.22.168 External USB Device
The external USB device is most likely (but is not required) to be, a digital camera. Any system that can act as a USB device could be connected as an external USB device. This is to facilitate printing in the absence of a PC.
12.1.2 Types of Communication
126.96.36.199 Communications with External Host
The external host communicates directly with the ISIMaster in order to print pages. When the ISIMaster is a SoPEC, the communications channel is FS USB.
188.8.131.52.1 External Host to ISIMaster Communication
The external host will need to communicate the following information to the ISIMaster device:
The ISIMaster will need to communicate the following information to the external host:
The external host will need to communicate the following information to the PrintMaster device:
The PrintMaster will need to communicate the following information to the external host:
All communication between the external host and ISISlave SoPEC devices must be direct (via a dedicated connection between the external host and the ISISlave) or must take place via the ISIMaster. In the case of a SoPEC ISIMaster it is possible to configure each individual USB endpoint to act as a control channel to an ISISlave SoPEC if desired, although the endpoints will be more usually used to transport data. The external host will need to communicate the following information to ISISlave devices over the comms/ISI:
All communication between the ISISlave SoPEC devices and the external host must take place via the ISIMaster. The ISISlave will need to communicate the following information to the external host over the comms/ISI:
The ISIMaster and PrintMaster will often be the same physical device. When they are different devices then the following information needs to be exchanged over the ISI:
This data is simply relayed by the ISIMaster
184.108.40.206.2 PrintMaster to ISIMaster Communication
The ISIMaster and PrintMaster will often be the same physical device. When they are different devices then the following information needs to be exchanged over the ISI:
This data is simply relayed by the ISIMaster
18.104.22.168.3 ISIMaster to ISISlave Communication
The ISIMaster may wish to communicate the following information to the ISISlaves:
The ISISlave may wish to communicate the following information to the ISIMaster:
When the PrintMaster is not the ISIMaster all ISI communication is done in response to ISI ping packets (see 22.214.171.124). When the PrintMaster is the ISIMaster then it will of course communicate directly with the ISISlaves. The PrintMaster SoPEC may wish to communicate the following information to the ISISlaves:
This list is not complete and the time constraints associated with these requirements have yet to be determined.
In general the PrintMaster may need to be able to:
This should be under the control of software running on the CPU which writes messages to the ISI/SCB interface.
18.104.22.168.6 ISISlave to PrintMaster Communication
ISISlaves may need to communicate the following information to the PrintMaster:
This list is not complete and the time constraints associated with these requirements have yet to be determined.
As the ISI is an insecure interface commands issued over the ISI should be of limited capability e.g. only limited register writes allowed. The software protocol needs to be constructed with this in mind.
In general ISISlaves may need to return register or status messages to the PrintMaster or ISIMaster. They may also need to indicate to the PrintMaster or ISIMaster that a particular interrupt has occurred on the ISISlave. This should be under the control of software running on the CPU which writes messages to the ISI block.
184.108.40.206.7 ISISlave to ISISlave Communication
The amount of information that will need to be communicated between ISISlaves will vary considerably depending on the printer configuration. In some systems ISISlave devices will only need to exchange small amounts of control information with each other while in other systems (such as those employing a storage SoPEC or extra USB connection) large amounts of compressed page data may be moved between ISISlaves. Scenarios where ISISlave to ISISlave communication is required include: (a) when the PrintMaster is not the ISIMaster, (b) QA Chip ink usage protocols, (c) data transmission from data storage SoPECs, (d) when there are multiple external host connections supplying data to the printer.
12.1.3 SCB Block Diagram
The SCB consists of four main sub-blocks, as shown in the basic block diagram of
12.1.4 Definitions of I/Os
The toplevel I/Os of the SCB are listed in Table 32. A more detailed description of their functionality will be given in the relevant sub-block sections.
A logical view of the SCB is shown in
12.2 USBD (USB Device Sub-block)
12.2.1 Overview
The FS USB device controller core and associated SCB logic are referred to as the USB Device (USBD).
A SoPEC printer has FS USB device capability to facilitate communication between an external USB host and a SoPEC printer. The USBD is self-powered. It connects to an external USB host via a dedicated USB interface on the SoPEC printer, comprising a USB connector, the necessary discretes for USB signalling and the associated SoPEC ASIC I/Os.
The FS USB device core will be third party IP from Synopsys: TymeWare™ USB1.1 Device Controller (UDCVCI). Refer to the UDCVCI User Manual [20] for a description of the core.
The device core does not support LS USB operation. Control and bulk transfers are supported by the device. Interrupt transfers are not considered necessary because the required interrupt-type functionality can be achieved by sending query messages over the control channel on a scheduled basis. There is no requirement to support isochronous transfers.
The device core is configured to support 6 USB endpoints (EPs): the default control EP (EP0), 4 bulk OUT EPs (EP1, EP2, EP3, EP4) and 1 bulk IN EP (EP5). It should be noted that the direction of each EP is with respect to the USB host, i.e. IN refers to data transferred to the external host and OUT refers to data transferred from the external host. The 4 bulk OUT EPs will be used for the transfer of data from the external host to SoPEC, e.g. compressed page data, program data or control messages. Each bulk OUT EP can be mapped on to any target destination in a multi-SoPEC system, via the SCB Map configuration registers. The bulk IN EP is used for the transfer of data from SoPEC to the external host, e.g. a print image downloaded from a digital camera that requires processing on the external host system. Any feedback data will be returned to the external host on EP0, e.g. status information.
The device core does not provide internal buffering for any of its EPs (with the exception of the 8 byte setup data payload for control transfers). All EP buffers are provided in the SCB. Buffers will be grouped according to EP direction and associated packet destination. The SCB Map configuration registers contain a DestISIId and DestISISubId for each OUT EP, defining their EP mapping and therefore their packet destination. Refer to section Section 12.4 ISI (Inter SoPEC Interface Sub-block) for further details on ISIId and ISISubId. Refer to section Section 12.5 CTRL (Control Sub-block) for further details on the mapping of OUT EPs.
12.2.2 USBD Effective Bandwidth
The effective bandwidth between an external USB host and the printer will be influenced by:
To maximize bandwidth to the printer it is recommended that no other devices are active on the USB between the printer and the external host. If the printer is connected to a HS USB external host or hub it may limit the bandwidth available to other devices connected to the same hub but it would not significantly affect the bandwidth available to other devices upstream of the hub. The EP buffering should not limit the USB device core throughput, under normal operating conditions.
Used in the recommended configuration, under ideal operating conditions, it is expected that an effective bandwidth of 8–9 Mbit/s will be achieved with bulk transfers between the external host and the printer.
12.2.3 IN EP Packet Buffer
The IN EP packet buffer stores packets originating from the LEON CPU that are destined for transmission over the USB to the external USB host. CPU writes to the buffer are 32 bits wide. USB device core reads from the buffer 32 bits wide.
128 bytes of local memory are required in total for EP0-IN and EP5-IN buffering. The IN EP buffer is a single, 2-port local memory instance, with a dedicated read port and a dedicated write port. Both ports are 32 bits wide. Each IN EP has a dedicated 64 byte packet location available in the memory array to buffer a single USB packet (maximum USB packet size is 64 bytes). Each individual 64 byte packet location is structured as 16ū32 bit words and is read/written in a FIFO manner.
When the device core reads a packet entry from the IN EP packet buffer, the buffer must retain the packet until the device core performs a status write, informing the SCB that the packet has been accepted by the external USB host and can be flushed. The CPU can therefore only write a single packet at a time to each IN EP. Any subsequent CPU write request to a buffer location containing a valid packet will be refused, until that packet has been successfully transmitted.
12.2.4 OUT EP Packet Buffer
The OUT EP packet buffer stores packets originating from the external USB host that are destined for transmission over DMAChannel0, DMAChannel1 or the ISI. The SCB control logic is responsible for routing the OUT EP packets from the OUT EP packet buffer to DMA or to the ISITū Buffer, based on the SCB Map configuration register settings. USB core writes to the buffer are 32 bits wide. DMA and ISI associated reads from the buffer are both 64 bits wide.
512 bytes of local memory are required in total for EP0-OUT, EP1-OUT, EP2-OUT, EP3-OUT and EP4-OUT buffering. The OUT EP packet buffer is a single, 2-port local memory instance, with a dedicated read port and a dedicated write port. Both ports are 64 bits wide. Byte enables are used for the 32 bit wide USB device core writes to the buffer. Each OUT EP can be mapped to DMAChannel0, DMAChanne1 or the ISI.
The OUT EP packet buffer is partitioned accordingly, resulting in three distinct packet FIFOs:
This description applies to USBDDMA0FIFO and USBDDMA1FIFO, where 'n' represents the respective DMA channel, i.e. n=0 for USBDDMA0FIFO, n=1 for USBDDMA1FIFO.
USBDDMAnFIFO services any EPs mapped to DMAChanneln on the local SoPEC device. This implies that a packet originating from an EP with an associated ISIId that matches the local SoPEC ISIId and an ISISubId=n will be written to USBDDMAnFIFO, if there is space available for that packet.
USBDDMAnFIFO has a capacity of 2ū64 byte packet entries, and can therefore buffer up to 2 USB packets. It can be considered as a 2 packet entry FIFO. Packets will be read from it in the same order in which they were written, i.e. the first packet written will be the first packet read and the second packet written will be the second packet read. Each individual 64 byte packet location is structured as 8ū64 bit words and is read/written in a FIFO manner.
The USBDDMAnFIFO has a write granularity of 64 bytes, to allow for the maximum USB packet size. The USBDDMAnFIFO will have a read granularity of 32 bytes to allow for the DMA write access bursts of 4ū64 bit words, i.e. the DMA Manager will read 32 byte chunks at a time from the USBDDMAnFIFO 64 byte packet entries, for transfer to the DIU.
It is conceivable that a packet which is not a multiple 32 bytes in size may be written to the USBDDMAnFIFO. When this event occurs, the DMA Manager will read the contents of the remaining address locations associated with the 32 byte chunk in the USBDDMAnFIFO, transferring the packet plus whatever data is present in those locations, resulting in a 32 byte packet (a burst of 4ū64 bit words) transfer to the DIU.
The DMA channels should achieve an effective bandwidth of 160 Mbits/sec (1 bit/cycle) and should never become blocked, under normal operating conditions. As the USB bandwidth is considerably less, a 2 entry packet FIFO for each DMA channel should be sufficient.
USBDISIFIFO services any EPs mapped to ISI. This implies that a packet originating from an EP with an associated ISIId that does not match the local SoPEC ISIId will be written to USBDISIFIFO if there is space available for that packet.
USBDISIFIFO has a capacity of 4ū64 byte packet entries, and can therefore buffer up to 4 USB packets. It can be considered as a 4 packet entry FIFO. Packets will be read from it in the same order in which they were written, i.e. the first packet written will be the first packet read and the second packet written will be the second packet read, etc. Each individual 64 byte packet location is structured as 8ū64 bit words and is read/written in a FIFO manner.
The ISI long packet format will be used to transfer data across the ISI. Each ISI long packet data payload is 32 bytes. The USBDISIFIFO has a write granularity of 64 bytes, to allow for the maximum USB packet size. The USBDISIFIFO will have a read granularity of 32 bytes to allow for the ISI packet size, i.e. the SCB will read 32 byte chunks at a time from the USBDISIFIFO 64byte packet entries, for transfer to the ISI.
It is conceivable that a packet which is not a multiple 32 bytes in size may be written to the USBDISIFIFO, either intentionally or due to a software error. A maskable interrupt per EP is provided to flag this event. There will be 2 options for dealing with this scenario on a per EP basis:
The ISI should achieve an effective bandwidth of 100 Mbits/sec (4 wire configuration). It is possible to encounter a number of retries when transmitting an ISI packet and the LEON CPU will require access to the ISI transmit buffer. However, considering the relatively low bandwidth of the USB, a 4 packet entry FIFO should be sufficient.
12.2.5 Wake-up from Sleep Mode
The SoPEC will be placed in sleep mode after a suspend command is received by the USB device core. The USB device core will continue to be powered and clocked in sleep mode. A USB reset, as opposed to a device resume, will be required to bring SoPEC out of its sleep state as the sleep state is hoped to be logically equivalent to the power down state.
The USB reset signal originating from the USB controller will be propagated to the CPR (as usb_cpr_reset_n) if the USBWakeupEnable bit of the WakeupEnable register (see Table ) has been set. The USBWakeupEnable bit should therefore be set just prior to entering sleep mode. There is a scenario that would require SoPEC to initiate a USB remote wake-up (i.e. where SoPEC signals resume to the external USB host after being suspended by the external USB host). A digital camera (or other supported external USB device) could be connected to SoPEC via the internal SoPEC USB host controller core interface. There may be a need to transfer data from this external USB device, via SoPEC, to the external USB host system for processing. If the USB connecting the external host system and SoPEC was suspended, then SoPEC would need to initiate a USB remote wake-up.
12.2.6 Implementation
22.214.171.124 USBD Sub-block Partition
The SoPEC USB Host Controller (HC) core, associated SCB logic and associated SoPEC ASIC I/Os are referred to as the USB Host (USBH).
A SoPEC printer has FS USB host capability, to facilitate communication between an external USB device and a SoPEC printer. The USBH connects to an external USB device via a dedicated USB interface on the SoPEC printer, comprising a USB connector, the necessary discretes for USB signalling and the associated SoPEC ASIC I/Os.
The FS USB HC core are third party IP from Synopsys: DesignWareR USB1.1 OHCI Host Controller with PVCI (UHOSTC_PVCI). Refer to the UHOSTC_PVCI User Manual [18] for details of the core. Refer to the Open Host Controller Interface (OHCI) Specification Release [19] for details of OHCI operation.
The HC core supports Low-Speed (LS) USB devices, although compatible external USB devices are most likely to be FS devices. It is expected that communication between an external USB device and a SoPEC printer will be achieved with control and bulk transfers. However, isochronous and interrupt transfers are also supported by the HC core.
There will be 2 communication channels between the Host Controller Driver (HCD) software running on the LEON CPU and the HC core:
The target PVCI interface is a 32 bit word aligned interface, with byte enables for write access. All read/write access to the target PVCI interface by the LEON CPU will be 32 bit word aligned. The byte enables will not be used, as all registers will be read and written as 32 bit words.
The initiator PVCI interface is a 32 bit word aligned interface with byte enables for write access. All DMA read/write accesses are 256 bit word aligned, in bursts of 4ū64 bit words. As there is no guarantee that the read/write requests from the HC core will start at a 256 bit boundary or be 256 bits long, it is necessary to provide 8 byte enables for each of the 64 bit words in a write burst form the HC core to DMA. The signal scb_diu_wmask serves this purpose.
Configuration of the HC core will be performed by the HCD.
12.3.2 Read/Write Buffering
The HC core maximum burst size for a read/write access is 4ū32 bit words. This implies that the minimum buffering requirements for the HC core will be a 1 entry deep address register and a 4 entry deep data register. It will be necessary to provide data and address mapping functionality to convert the 4ū32 bit word HC core read/write bursts into 4ū64 bit word DMA read/write bursts.
This will meet the minimum buffering requirements.
12.3.3 USBH Effective Bandwidth
The effective bandwidth between an external USB device and a SoPEC printer will be influenced by:
Effective bandwidth between an external USB device and a SoPEC printer is not an issue. The primary application of this connectivity is the download of a print image from a digital camera. Printing speed is not important for this type of print operation. However, to maximize bandwidth to the printer it is recommended that no other devices are active on the USB between the printer and the external USB device. The HC read/write buffering in the SCB should not limit the USB HC core throughput, under normal operating conditions.
Used in the recommended configuration, under ideal operating conditions, it is expected that an effective bandwidth of 8–9 Mbit/s will be achieved with bulk transfers between the external USB device and the SoPEC printer.
12.3.4 Implementation
12.3.5 USBH Sub-block Partition
The ISI is utilised in all system configurations requiring more than one SoPEC. An example of such a system which requires four SoPECs for duplex A3 printing and an additional SoPEC used as a storage device is shown in
The ISI performs much the same function between an ISISlave SoPEC and the ISIMaster as the USB connection performs between the ISIMaster and the external host. This includes the transfer of all program data, compressed page data and message (i.e. commands or status information) passing between the ISIMaster and the ISISlave SoPECs. The ISIMaster initiates all communication with the ISISlaves.
12.4.2 ISI Effective Bandwidth
The ISI will need to run at a speed that will allow error free transmission on the PCB while minimising the buffering and hardware requirements on SoPEC. While an ISI speed of 10 Mbit/s is adequate to match the effective FS USB bandwidth it would limit the system performance when a high-speed connection (e.g. USB2.0, IEEE1394) is used to attach the printer to the PC. Although they would require the use of an extra ISI-Bridge chip such systems are envisaged for more expensive printers (compared to the low-cost basic SoPEC powered printers that are initially being targeted) in the future.
An ISI line speed (i.e. the speed of each individual ISI wire) of 32 Mbit/s is therefore proposed as it will allow ISI data to be over-sampled 5 times (at a pclk frequency of 160MHz). The total bandwidth of the ISI will depend on the number of pins used to implement the interface. The ISI protocol will work equally well if 2 or 4 pins are used for transmission/reception. The ISINumPins register is used to select between a 2 or 4 wire ISI, giving peak raw bandwidths of 64 Mbit/s and 128 Mbit/s respectively. Using either a 2 or 4 wire ISI solution would allow the movement of data in to and out of a storage SoPEC (as described in 18.104.22.168 above), which is the most bandwidth hungry ISI use, in a timely fashion.
The ISINumPins register is used to select between a 2 or 4 wire ISI. A 2 wire ISI is the default setting for ISINumPins and this may be changed to a 4 wire ISI after initial communication has been established between the ISIMaster and all ISISlaves. Software needs to ensure that the switch from 2 to 4 wires is handled in a controlled and coordinated fashion so that nothing is transmitted on the ISI during the switch over period.
The maximum effective bandwidth of a two wire ISI, after allowing for protocol overheads and bus turnaround times, is expected to be approx. 50 Mbit/s.
12.4.3 ISI Device Identification and Enumeration
The ISIMasterSel bit of the ISICntrl register (see section Table) determines whether a SoPEC is an ISIMaster (ISIMasterSel=1), or an ISISlave (ISIMasterSel=0). SoPEC defaults to being an ISISlave (ISIMasterSel=0) after a power-on reset—i.e. it will not transmit data on the ISI without first receiving a ping. If a SoPEC's ISIMasterSel bit is changed to 1, then that SoPEC will become the ISIMaster, transmitting data without requiring a ping, and generating pings as appropriately programmed.
ISIMasterSel can be set to 1 explicitly by the CPU writing directly to the ISICntrl register.
ISIMasterSel can also be automatically set to 1 when activity occurs on any of USB endpoints 2–4 and the AutoMasterEnable bit of the ISICntrl register is also 1 (the default reset condition). Note that if AutoMasterEnable is 0, then activity on USB endpoints 2–4 will not result in ISIMasterSel being set to 1. USB endpoints 2–4 are chosen for the automatic detection since the power-on-reset condition has USB endpoints 0 and 1 pointing to ISIId 0 (which matches the local SoPEC's ISIId after power-on reset). Thus any transmission on USB endpoints 2–4 indicate a desire to transmit on the ISI which would usually indicate ISIMaster status. The automatic setting of ISIMasterSel can be disabled by clearing AutoMasterEnable, thereby allowing the SoPEC to remain an ISISlave while still making use of the USB endpoints 2–4 as external destinations.
Thus the setting of a SoPEC being ISIMaster or ISISlave can be completely under software control, or can be completely automatic.
The ISIId is established by software downloaded over the ISI (in broadcast mode) which looks at the input levels on a number of GPIO pins to determine the ISIId. For any given printer that uses a multi-SoPEC configuration it is expected that there will always be enough free GPIO pins on the ISISlaves to support this enumeration mechanism.
12.4.4 ISI Protocol
The ISI is a serial interface utilizing a 2/4 wire half-duplex configuration such as the 2-wire system shown in
To maximize the effective ISI bandwidth while minimising pin requirements a half-duplex interleaved transmission scheme is used.
All ISI transactions are initiated by the ISIMaster and every non-broadcast data packet needs to be acknowledged by the addressed recipient. An ISISlave may only transmit when it receives a ping packet (see section 220.127.116.11) addressed to it. To avoid bus contention all ISI devices must wait ISITurnAround bit-times (5 pclk cycles per bit) after detecting the end of a packet before transmitting a packet (assuming they are required to transmit). All non-transmitting ISI devices must tristate their Tx drivers to avoid line contention. The ISI protocol is defined to avoid devices driving out of order (e.g. when an ISISlave is no longer being addressed). As the ISI uses standard I/O pads there is no physical collision detection mechanism.
There are three types of ISI packet: a long packet (used for data transmission), a ping packet (used by the ISIMaster to prompt ISISlaves for packets) and a short packet (used to acknowledge receipt of a packet). All ISI packets are delineated by a Start and Stop fields and transmission is atomic i.e. an ISI packet may not be split or halted once transmission has started.
22.214.171.124 ISI Transactions
The different types of ISI transactions are outlined in
22.214.171.124 Start Field Description
The Start field serves two purposes: To allow the start of a packet be unambiguously identified and to allow the receiving device synchronise to the data stream. The symbol, or data value, used to identify a Start field must not legitimately occur in the ensuing packet. Bit stuffing is used to guarantee that the Start symbol will be unique in any valid (i.e. error free) packet. The ISI needs to see a valid Start symbol before packet reception can commence i.e. the receive logic constantly looks for a Start symbol in the incoming data and will reject all data until it sees a Start symbol.
Furthermore if a Start symbol occurs (incorrectly) during a data packet it will be treated as the start of a new packet. In this case the partially received packet will be discarded.
The data value of the Start symbol should guarantee that an adequate number of transitions occur on the physical ISI lines to allow the receiving ISI device to determine the best sampling window for the transmitted data. The Start symbol should also be sufficiently long to ensure that the bit stuffing overhead is low but should still be short enough to reduce its own contribution to the packet overhead. A Start symbol of b01010101 is therefore used as it is an effective compromise between these constraints.
Each SoPEC in a multi-SoPEC system will derive its system clock from a unique (i.e. one per SoPEC) crystal. The system clocks of each device will drift relative to each other over any period of time. The system clocks are used for generation and sampling of the ISI data. Therefore the sampling window can drift and could result in incorrect data values being sampled at a later point in time. To overcome this problem the ISI receive circuitry tracks the sampling window against the incoming data to ensure that the data is sampled in the centre of the bit period.
188.8.131.52 Stop Field Description
A 1 bit-time Stop field of b1 per ISI line ensures that all ISI lines return to the high state before the next packet is transmitted. The stop field is driven on to each ISI line simultaneously, i.e. b11 for a 2-wire ISI and b1111 for a 4-wire ISI would be interleaved over the respective ISI lines. Each ISI line is driven high for 1 bit-time. This is necessary because the first bit of the Start field is b0.
22.214.171.124 Bit Stuffing
This involves the insertion of bits into the bitstream at the transmitting SoPEC to avoid certain data patterns. The receiving SoPEC will strip these inserted bits from the bitstream.
Bit-stuffing will be performed when the Start symbol appears at a location other than the start field of any packet, i.e. when the bit pattern b0101010 occurs at the transmitter, a 0 will be inserted to escape the Start symbol, resulting in the bit pattern b01010100. Conversely, when the bit pattern b0101010 occurs at the receiver, if the next bit is a '0' it will be stripped, if it is a '1' then a Start symbol is detected.
If the frequency variations in the quartz crystal were large enough, it is conceivable that the resultant frequency drift over a large number of consecutive 1s or 0s could cause the receiving SoPEC to loose synchronisation.6 The quartz crystal that will be used in SoPEC systems is rated for 32 MHz @ 100 ppm. In a multi-SoPEC system with a 32 MHz+100 ppm crystal and a 32 MHz−100 ppm crystal, it would take approximately 5000 pclk cycles to cause a drift of 1 pclk cycle. This means that we would only need to bit-stuff somewhere before 1000 ISI bits of consecutive 1s or consecutive 0s, to ensure adequate synchronization. As the maximum number of bits transmitted per ISI line in a packet is 145, it should not be necessary to perform bit-stuffing for consecutive 1s or 0s. We may wish to constrain the spec of xtalin and also xtalin for the ISI-Bridge chip to ensure the ISI cannot drift out of sync during packet reception.
Note that any violation of bit stuffing will result in the RxFrameErrorSticky status bit being set and the incoming packet will be treated as an errored packet. 6Current max packet size˜=290 bits=145 bits per ISI line (on a 2 wire ISI)=725 160 MHz cycles. Thus the pclks in the two communicating ISI devices should not drift by more than one cycle in 725 i.e. 1379 ppm. Careful analysis of the crystal, PLL and oscillator specs and the sync detection circuit is needed here to ensure our solution is robust.
126.96.36.199 ISI Long Packet
The format of a long ISI packet is shown in
All long packets begin with the Start field as described earlier. The PktDesc field is described in Table 33.
Any ISI device in the system may transmit a long packet but only the ISIMaster may initiate an ISI transaction using a long packet. An ISISlave may only send a long packet in reply to a ping message from the ISIMaster. A long packet from an ISISlave may be addressed to any ISI device in the system.
The Address field is straightforward and complies with the ISI naming convention described in section 12.5.
The payload field is exactly what is in the transmit buffer of the transmitting ISI device and gets copied into the receive buffer of the addressed ISI device(s). When present the payload field is always 256 bits.
To ensure strong error detection a 16-bit CRC is appended.
188.8.131.52 ISI Ping Packet
The ISI ping packet is used to allow ISISlaves to transmit on the ISI bus. As can be seen from
An ISISlave should never respond to a ping message to the broadcast ISIId as this must have been sent in error. An ISI ping packet will never be sent in response to any packet and may only originate from an ISIMaster.
220.127.116.11 ISI Short Packet
The ISI short packet is only 17 bits long, including the Start and Stop fields. A value of b111101011 is proposed for the ACK symbol. As a 16-bit CRC is inappropriate for such a short packet it is not used. In fact there is only one valid value for a short ACK packet as the Start, ACK and Stop symbols all have fixed values. Short packets are only used for acknowledgements (i.e. explicit ACKs). The format of a short ISI packet is shown in
22.214.171.124 Error Detection and Retransmission
The 16-bit CRC will provide a high degree of error detection and the probability of transmission errors occurring is very low as the transmission channel (i.e. PCB traces) will have a low inherent bit error rate. The number of undetected errors should therefore be minute.
The HDLC standard CRC-16 (i.e. G(x)=x16+x12+x5+1) is to be used for this calculation, which is to be performed serially. It is calculated over the entire packet (excluding the Start and Stop fields). A simple retransmission mechanism frees the CPU from getting involved in error recovery for most errors because the probability of a transmission error occurring more than once in succession is very, very low in normal circumstances.
After each non-short ISI packet is transmitted the transmitting device will open a reply window. The size of the reply window will be ISIShortReplyWin bit times when a short packet is expected in reply, i.e. the size of a short packet, allowing for worst case bit stuffing, bus turnarounds and timing differences. The size of the reply window will be ISILongReplyWin bit times when a long packet is expected in reply, i.e. this will be the max size of a long packet, allowing for worst case bit stuffing, bus turnarounds and timing differences. In both cases if an ACK is received the window will close and another packet can be transmitted but if an ACK is not received then the full length of the window must be waited out.
As no reply should be sent to a broadcast packet, no reply window should be required however all other long packets open a reply window in anticipation of an ACK. While the desire is to minimize the time between broadcast transmissions the simplest solution should be employed. This would imply the same size reply window as other long packets.
When a packet has been received without any errors the receiving ISI device must transmit its acknowledge packet (which may be either a long or short packet) before the reply window closes. When detected errors do occur the receiving ISI device will not send any response. The transmitting ISI device interprets this lack of response as a NAK indicating that errors were detected in the transmitted packet or that the receiving device was unable to receive the packet for some reason (e.g. its buffers are full). If a long packet was transmitted the transmitting ISI device will keep the transmitted packet in its transmit buffer for retransmission. If the transmitting device is the ISIMaster it will retransmit the packet immediately while if the transmitting device is an ISISlave it will retransmit the packet in response to the next ping it receives from the ISIMaster.
The transmitting ISI device will continue retransmitting the packet when it receives a NAK until it either receives an ACK or the number of retransmission attempts equals the value of the NumRetries register. If the transmission was unsuccessful then the transmitting device sets the TxErrorSticky bit in its ISIIntStatus register. The receiving device also sets the RxErrorSticky bit in its ISIIntStatus register whenever it detects a CRC error in an incoming packet and is not required to take any further action, as it is up to the transmitting device to detect and rectify the problem. The NumRetries registers in all ISI devices should be set to the same value for consistent operation.
Note that successful transmission or reception of ping packets do not affect retransmission operation.
Note that a transmit error will cause the ISI to stop transmitting. CPU intervention will be required to resolve the source of the problem and to restart the ISI transmit operation. Receive errors however do not affect receive operation and they are collected to facilitate problem debug and to monitor the quality of the ISI physical channel. Transmit or receive errors should be extremely rare and their occurrence will most likely indicate a serious problem.
Note that broadcast packets are never acknowledged to avoid contention on the common ISI lines. If an ISISlave detects an error in a broadcast packet it should use the message passing mechanism described earlier to alert the ISIMaster to the error if it so wishes.
188.8.131.52 Sequence Bit Operation
To ensure that communication between transmitting and receiving ISI devices is correctly ordered a sequence bit is included in every long packet to keep both devices in step with each other. The sequence bit field is a constant for short or ping packets as they are not used for data transmission. In addition to the transmitted sequence bit all ISI devices keep two local sequence bits, one for each ISISubId. Furthermore each ISI device maintains a transmit sequence bit for each ISIId and ISISubId it is in communication with. For packets sourced from the external host (via USB) the transmit sequence bit is contained in the relevant USBEPnDest register while for packets sourced from the CPU the transmit sequence bit is contained in the CPUISITxBuffCntrl register. The sequence bits for received packets are stored in ISISubId0Seq and ISISubId1Seq registers. All ISI devices will initialize their sequence bits to 0 after reset. It is the responsibility of software to ensure that the sequence bits of the transmitting and receiving ISI devices are correctly initialized each time a new source is selected for any ISIId.ISISubId channel.
Sequence bits are ignored by the receiving ISI device for broadcast packets. However the broadcasting ISI device is free to toggle the sequence in the broadcast packets since they will not affect operation. The SCB will do this for all USB source data so that there is no special treatment for the sequence bit of a broadcast packet in the transmitting device. CPU sourced broadcasts will have sequence bits toggled at the discretion of the program code.
Each SoPEC may also ignore the sequence bit on either of its ISISubId channels by setting the appropriate bit in the ISISubIdSeqMask register. The sequence bit should be ignored for ISISubId channels that will carry data that can originate from more than one source and is self ordering e.g. control messages.
A receiving ISI device will toggle its sequence bit addressed by the ISISubId only when the receiver is able to accept data and receives an error-free data packet addressed to it. The transmitting ISI device will toggle its sequence bit for that ISIId.ISISubId channel only when it receives a valid ACK handshake from the addressed ISI device.
When the receiving ISI device detects an error in the transmitted long packet or is unable to accept the packet (because of full buffers for example) it will not return any packet and it will not toggle its local sequence bit. An example of this is depicted in
However it is also possible for the ACK packet from the receiving ISI device to be corrupted and this scenario is shown in
18.104.22.168 Flow Control
The ISI also supports flow control by treating it in exactly the same manner as an error in the received packet. Because the SCB enjoys greater guaranteed bandwidth to DRAM than both the ISI and USB can supply flow control should not be required during normal operation. Any blockage on a DMA channel will soon result in the NumRetries value being exceeded and transmission from that SoPEC being halted. If a SoPEC NAKs a packet because its RxBuffer is full it will flag an overflow condition. This condition can potentially cause a CPU interrupt, if the corresponding interrupt is enabled. The RxOverflowSticky bit of its ISIIntStatus register reflects this condition. Because flow control is treated in the same manner as an error the transmitting ISI device will not be able to differentiate a flow control condition from an error in the transmitted packet.
220.127.116.11 Auto-ping Operation
While the CPU of the ISIMaster could send a ping packet by writing the appropriate header to the CPUISITxBuffCntrl register it is expected that all ping packets will be generated in the ISI itself. The use of automatically generated ping packets ensures that ISISlaves will be given access to the ISI bus with a programmable minimum guaranteed frequency in addition to whenever it would otherwise be idle. Five registers facilitate the automatic generation of ping messages within the ISI: PingSchedule0, PingSchedule1, PingSchedule2, ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod. Auto-pinging will be enabled if any bit of any of the PingScheduleN registers is set and disabled if all PingScheduleN registers are 0x0000.
Each bit of the 15-bit PingScheduleN register corresponds to an ISIId that is used in the Address field of the ping packet and a 1 in the bit position indicates that a ping packet is to be generated for that ISIId. A 0 in any bit position will ensure that no ping packet is generated for that ISIId. As ISISlaves may differ in their bandwidth requirement (particularly if a storage SoPEC is present) three different PingSchedule registers are used to allow an ISISlave receive up to three times the number of pings as another active ISISlave. When the ISIMaster is not sending long packets (sourced from either the CPU or USB in the case of a SoPEC ISIMaster) ISI ping packets will be transmitted according to the pattern given by the three PingScheduleN registers. The ISI will start with the Isb of PingSchedule0 register and work its way from Isb through msb of each of the PingScheduleN registers. When the msb of PingSchedule2 is reached the ISI returns to the Isb of PingSchedule0 and continues to cycle through each bit position of each PingScheduleN register. The ISI has more than enough time to work out the destination of the next ping packet while a ping or long packet is being transmitted.
With the addition of auto-ping operation we now have three potential sources of packets in an ISIMaster SoPEC: USB, CPU and auto-ping. Arbitration between the CPU and USB for access to the ISI is handled outside the ISI. To ensure that local packets get priority whenever possible and that ping packets can have some guaranteed access to the ISI we use two 4-bit counters whose reload value is contained in the ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod registers. As we saw in section 188.8.131.52 every ISI transaction is initiated by the ISIMaster transmitting either a long packet or a ping packet. The ISITotalPeriod counter is decremented for every ISI transaction (i.e. either long or ping) when its value is non-zero. The ISILocalPeriod counter is decremented for every local packet that is transmitted. Neither counter is decremented by a retransmitted packet. If the ISITotalPeriod counter is zero then ping packets will not change its value from zero. Both the ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod counters are reloaded by the next local packet transmit request after the ISITotalPeriod counter has reached zero and this local packet has priority over pings.
The amount of guaranteed ISI bandwidth allocated to both local and ping packets is determined by the values of the ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod registers. Local packets will always be given priority when the ISILocalPeriod counter is non-zero. Ping packets will be given priority when the ISILocalPeriod counter is zero and the ISITotalPeriod counter is still non-zero.
Note that ping packets are very likely to get more than their guaranteed bandwidth as they will be transmitted whenever the ISI bus would otherwise be idle (i.e. no pending local packets). In particular when the ISITotalPeriod counter is zero it will not be reloaded until another local packet is pending and so ping packets transmitted when the ISITotalPeriod counter is zero will be in addition to the guaranteed bandwidth. Local packets on the other hand will never get more than their guaranteed bandwidth because each local packet transmitted decrements both counters and will cause the counters to be reloaded when the ISITotalPeriod counter is zero. The difference between the values of the ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod registers determines the number of automatically generated ping packets that are guaranteed to be transmitted every ISITotalPeriod number of ISI transactions. If the ISITotalPeriod and ISILocalPeriod values are the same then the local packets will always get priority and could totally exclude ping packets if the CPU always has packets to send.
For example if ISITotalPeriod=0xC; ISILocalPeriod=0x8; PingSchedule0=0x0E; PingSchedule1=0x0C and PingSchedule2=0x08 then four ping messages are guaranteed to be sent in every 12 ISI transactions. Furthermore ISIId3 will receive 3 times the number of ping packets as ISId1 and ISIId2 will receive twice as many as ISId1. Thus over a period of 36 contended ISI transactions (allowing for two full rotations through the three PingScheduleN registers) when local packets are always pending 24 local packets will be sent, ISId1 will receive 2 ping packets, ISId2 will receive 4 pings and ISId3 will receive 6 ping packets. If local traffic is less frequent then the ping frequency will automatically adjust upwards to consume all remaining ISI bandwidth.
12.4.5 Wake-up from Sleep Mode
Either the PrintMaster SoPEC or the external host may place any of the ISISlave SoPECs in sleep mode prior to going into sleep mode itself. The ISISlave device should then ensure that its ISIWakeupEnable bit of the WakeupEnable register (see Table 34) is set prior to entering sleep mode. In an ISISlave device the ISI block will continue to receive power and clock during sleep mode so that it may monitor the gpio_isi_din lines for activity. When ISI activity is detected during sleep mode and the ISIWakeupEnable bit is set the ISI asserts the isi_cpr_reset_n signal. This will bring the rest of the chip out of sleep mode by means of a wakeup reset. See chapter 16 for more details of reset propagation.
12.4.6 Implementation
Although the ISI consists of either 2 or 4 ISI data lines over which a serial data stream is demultiplexed, each ISI line is treated as a separate serial link at the physical layer. This permits a certain amount of skew between the ISI lines that could not be tolerated if the lines were treated as a parallel bus. A lower Bit Error Rate (BER) can be achieved if the serial data recovery is performed separately on each serial link.
188.8.131.52 ISI Sub-block Partition
There are 4 instantiations of the isi_sie sub block in the ISI, 1 per ISI serial link. The isi_sie is responsible for Rx serial data sampling, Tx serial data output and bit stuffing.
Data is sampled based on a phase detection mechanism. The incoming ISI serial data stream is over sampled 5 times per ISI bit period. The phase of the incoming data is determined by detecting transitions in the ISI serial data stream, which indicates the ISI bit boundaries. An ISI bit boundary is defined as the sample phase at which a transition was detected.
The basic functional components of the isi_sie are detailed in
10 126.96.36.199.1 SIE Edge Detection and Data I/O
The basic structure of the data I/O and edge detection mechanism is detailed in
NOTE: Serial data from the receiver in the pad MUST be synchronized to the isi_pclk domain with a 2 stage shift register external to the ISI, to reduce the risk of metastability. ser_data_out and ser_data_en should be registered externally to the ISI.
The Rx/Tx statemachine drives ser_data_en, stuff_1_en and stuff_0_en. The signals stuff_1_en and stuff_0_en cause a one or a zero to be driven on ser_data_out when they are asserted, otherwise fifo_rd_data is selected.
184.108.40.206.2 SIE Rx/Tx Statemachine
The Rx/Tx statemachine is responsible for the transmission of ISI Tx data and the sampling of ISI Rx data. Each ISI bit period is 5 isi_pclk cycles in duration.
The Tx cycle of the Rx/Tx statemachine is illustrated in
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated.
The Tx cycle for Tx bit stuffing when the Rx/Tx statemachine inserts a '0' into the bitstream can be seen in
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated
The Tx cycle for Tx bit stuffing when the RxTx statemachine inserts a '1' into the bitstream can be seen in
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated
The tx* and stuff* states are detailed separately for clarity. They could be easily combined when coding the statemachine, however it would be better for verification and debugging if they were kept separate.
The Rx cycle of the ISI Rx/Tx statemachine is detailed in
The optimum sample position for an ideal ISI bit period is 2 isi_pclk cycles after the ISI bit boundary sample, which should result in a data sample close to the centre of the ISI bit period. rx_sample is asserted during the rx2 state to indicate a valid ISI data sample on rx_bit, unless the bit should be stripped when flagged by the bit stuffing statemachine, in which case rx_sample is not asserted during rx2 and the bit is not written to the FIFO. When edge is asserted, it resets the Rx cycle to the rx0 state, from any rx state. This is how the isi_sie tracks the phase of the incoming data. The Rx cycle will cycle through states rx0->rx4 until edge is asserted to reset the sample phase, or a tx_req is asserted indicating that the ISI needs to transmit.
Due to the 5 times oversampling a maximum phase error of 0.4 of an ISI bit period (2 isi_pclk cycles out of 5) can be tolerated.
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated.
An example of the Tx data generation mechanism is detailed in
An example of the Rx data sampling functional timing is detailed in
22.214.171.124.3 SIE Rx/Tx FIFO
The Rx/Tx FIFO is a 7ū1 bit synchronous look-ahead FIFO that is shared for Tx and Rx operations. It is required to absorb any Rx/Tx latency caused by bit stripping/stuffing on a per ISI line basis, i.e. some ISI lines may require bit stripping/stuffing during an ISI bit period while the others may not, which would lead to a loss of synchronization between the data of the different ISI lines, if a FIFO were not present in each isi_sie.
The basic functional components of the FIFO are detailed in
The size of the FIFO is based on the maximum bit stuffing frequency and the size of the shift register used to segment/re-assemble the multiple serial streams in the ISI framing logic. The maximum bit stuffing frequency is every 7 consecutive ones or zeroes. The shift register used is 32 bits wide. This implies that the maximum number of stuffed bits encountered in the time it takes to fill/empty the shift register if 4. This would suggest that 4ū1 bit would be the minimum ideal size of the FIFO. However it is necessary to allow for different skew and phase error between the ISI lines, hence a 7ū1 bit FIFO.
The FIFO is controlled by the isi_sie during packet reception and is controlled by the isi_frame block during packet transmission. This is illustrated in
188.8.131.52 Bit Stuffing
Programmable bit stuffing is implemented in the isi_sie. This is to allow the system to determine the amount of bit stuffing necessary for a specific ISI system devices. It is unlikely that bit stuffing would be required in a system using a 100 ppm rated crystal. However, a programmable bit stuffing implementation is much more versatile and robust.
The bit stuffing logic consists of a counter and a statemachine that track the number of consecutive ones or zeroes that are transmitted or received and flags the Rx/Tx statemachine when the bit stuffing limit has been reached. The counter, stuff count, is a 7 bit counter, which decrements when rx_sample is asserted on a Rx cycle or when fifo_rd_tx is asserted on a Tx cycle. The upper 4 bits of stuff count are loaded with isi_bit_stuff rate. The lower 3 bits of stuff count are always loaded with b111, i.e. for isi_bit_stuff rate=b000, the counter would be loaded with b0000111. This is to prevent bit stuffing for less than 7 consecutive ones or zeroes. This allows the bit stuffing limit to be set in the range 7->127 consecutive ones or zeroes.
NOTE: It is extremely important that a change in the bit stuffing rate, isi bit stuff rate, is carefully coordinated between ISI devices in a system. It is obvious that ISI devices will not be able to communicate reliably with each other with different bit stuffing settings. It is recommended that all ISI devices in a system default to the safest bit stuffing rate (isi bit_stuff rate=b000) at reset. The system can then co-ordinate the change to an optimum bit stuffing rate.
The ISI bit stuffing statemachine Tx cycle is shown in
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated.
The ISI bit stuffing statemachine Rx cycle is shown in
NOTE: All statemachine signals are assumed to be '0' unless otherwise stated.
126.96.36.199 ISI Framing and CRC Sub-block (isi_frame)
184.108.40.206.1 CRC Generation/Checking
A Cyclic Redundancy Checksum (CRC) is calculated over all fields except the start and stop fields for each long or ping packet transmitted. The receiving ISI device will perform the same calculation on the received packet to verify the integrity of the packet. The procedure used in the CRC generation/checking is the same as the Frame Checking Sequence (FCS) procedure used in HDLC, detailed in ITU-T Recommendation T30[39].
For generation/checking of the CRC field, the shift register illustrated in
To generate the CRC for a transmitted packet, where T(x)=[Packet Descriptor field, Address field, Data Payload field] (a ping packet will not contain a data payload field).
The CTRL is responsible for high level control of the SCB sub-blocks and coordinating access between them. All control and status registers for the SCB are contained within the CTRL and are accessed via the CPU interface. The other major components of the CTRL are the SCB Map logic and the DMA Manager logic.
12.5.2 SCB Mapping
In order to support maximum flexibility when moving data through a multi-SoPEC system it is possible to map any USB endpoint onto either DMAChannel within any SoPEC in the system. The SCB map, and indeed the SCB itself is based around the concept of an ISIId and an ISISubId. Each SoPEC in the system has a unique ISIId and two ISISubIds, namely ISISubId0 and ISISubid1. We use the convention that ISISubId0 corresponds to DMAChannel0 in each SoPEC and ISISubId1 corresponds to DMAChannel1. The naming convention for the ISIId is shown in Table 35 below and this would correspond to a multi-SoPEC system such as that shown in
The combined ISIId and ISISubId therefore allows the ISI to address DMAChannel0 or DMAChannel1 on any SoPEC device in the system. The ISI, DMA manager and SCB map hardware use the ISIId and ISISubId to handle the different data streams that are active in a multi-SoPEC system as does the software running on the CPU of each SoPEC. In this document we will identify DMAChannels as ISIx.y where x is the ISIId and y is the ISISubId. Thus ISI2.1 refers to DMAChannel1 of ISISlave2. Any data sent to a broadcast channel, i.e. ISI15.0 or ISI15.1, are received by every ISI device in the system including the ISIMaster (which may be an ISI-Bridge). The USB device controller and software stacks however have no understanding of the ISIId and ISISubId but the Silverbrook printer driver software running on the external host does make use of the ISIId and ISISubId. USB is simply used as a data transport—the mapping of USB device endpoints onto ISIId and SubId is communicated from the external host Silverbrook code to the SoPEC Silverbrook code through USB control (or possibly bulk data) messages i.e. the mapping information is simply data payload as far as USB is concerned. The code running on SoPEC is responsible for parsing these messages and configuring the SCB accordingly.
The use of just two DMAChannels places some limitations on what can be achieved without software intervention. For every SoPEC in the system there are more potential sources of data than there are sinks. For example an ISISlave could receive both control and data messages from the ISIMaster SoPEC in addition to control and data from the external host, either specifically addressed to that particular ISISlave or over the broadcast ISI channel. However all ISISlaves only have two possible data sinks, i.e. DMAChannel0 and DMAChannel1. Another example is the ISIMaster in a multi-SoPEC system which may receive control messages from each SoPEC in addition to control and data information from the external host (e.g. over USB). In this case all of the control messages are in contention for access to DMAChannel0. We resolve these potential conflicts by adopting the following conventions:
An example of the above conventions in operation is worked through in section 188.8.131.52.
184.108.40.206 SCB Map Rules
The operation of the SCB map is described by these 2 rules:
If the CPU erroneously addresses a packet to the ISIId contained in the ISIId register (i.e. the ISIId of the local SoPEC) then that packet will be transmitted on the ISI rather than be sent to the DMA manager. While this will usually cause an error on the ISI there is one situation where it could be beneficial, namely for initial dialog in a 2 SoPEC system as both devices come out of reset with an ISIId of 0.
184.108.40.206 External Host to ISIMaster SoPEC Communication
Although the SCB map configuration is independent of ISIMaster status, the following discussion on SCB map configurations assumes the ISIMaster is a SoPEC device rather than an ISI bridge chip, and that only a single USB connection to the external host is present. The information should apply broadly to an ISI-Bridge but we focus here on an ISIMaster SoPEC for clarity.
As the ISIMaster SoPEC represents the printer device on the PC USB bus it is required by the USB specification to have a dedicated control endpoint, EP0. At boot time the ISIMaster SoPEC will also require a bulk data endpoint to facilitate the transfer of program code from the external host. The simplest SCB map configuration, i.e. for a single stand-alone SoPEC, is sufficient for external host to ISIMaster SoPEC communication and is shown in Table 36.
In this configuration all USB control information exchanged between the external host and SoPEC over EP0 (which is the only bidirectional USB endpoint). SoPEC specific control information (printer status, DNC info etc.) is also exchanged over EP0.
All packets sent to the external host from SoPEC over EP0 must be written into the DMA mapped EP buffer by the CPU (LEON-PC dataflow in
The above mechanisms are appropriate for the types of communication outlined in sections 184.108.40.206.1 through 220.127.116.11.4
18.104.22.168 Broadcast Communication
The SCB configuration for broadcast communication is also the default, post power-on reset, configuration for SoPEC and is shown in Table 37.
USB endpoints EP2 and EP3 are mapped onto ISISubID0 and ISISubId1 of ISIId15 (the broadcast ISIId channel). EP0 is used for control messages as before and EP1 is a bulk data endpoint for the ISIMaster SoPEC. Depending on what is convenient for the boot loader software, EP1 may or may not be used during the initial program download, but EP1 is highly likely to be used for compressed page or other program downloads later. For this reason it is part of the default configuration. In this setup the USB device configuration will take place, as it always must, by exchanging messages over the control channel (EP0).
One possible boot mechanism is where the external host sends the bootloader1 program code to all SoPECs by broadcasting it over EP3. Each SoPEC in the system then authenticates and executes the bootloader1 program. The ISIMaster SoPEC then polls each ISISlave (over the ISIx.0 channel). Each ISISlave ascertains its ISIId by sampling the particular GPIO pins required by the bootloader1 and reporting its presence and status back to the ISIMaster. The ISIMaster then passes this information back to the external host over EP0. Thus both the extemal host and the ISIMaster have knowledge of the number of SoPECs, and their ISIIds, in the system. The external host may then reconfigure the SCB map to better optimise the SCB resources for the particular multi-SoPEC system. This could involve simplifying the default configuration to a single SoPEC system or remapping the broadcast channels onto DMAChannels in individual ISISlaves.
The following steps are required to reconfigure the SCB map from the configuration depicted in Table to one where EP3 is mapped onto ISI1.0:
If the ISIMaster is configured correctly (e.g. when the ISIMaster is a SoPEC, and that SoPEC's SCB map is configured correctly) then data sent from the external host destined for an ISISlave will be transmitted on the ISI with the correct address. The ISI automatically forwards any data addressed to it (including broadcast data) to the DMA channel with the appropriate ISISubId. If the ISISlave has data to send to the external host it must do so by sending a control message to the ISIMaster identifying the external host as the intended recipient. It is then the ISIMaster's responsibility to forward this message to the external host.
With this configuration the external host can communicate with the ISISlave via broadcast messages only and this is the mechanism by which the bootloader1 program is downloaded. The ISISlave is unable to communicate with the external host (or the ISIMaster) until the bootloader1 program has successfully executed and the ISISlave has determined what its ISIId is. After the bootloader1 program (and possibly other programs) has executed the SCB map of the ISIMaster may be reconfigured to reflect the most appropriate topology for the particular multi-SoPEC system it is part of.
All communication from an ISISlave to external host is either achieved directly (if there is a direct USB connection present for example) or by sending messages via the ISIMaster. The ISISlave can never initiate communication to the external host. If an ISISlave wishes to send a message to the external host via the ISIMaster it must wait until it is pinged by the ISIMaster and then send a the message in a long packet addressed to the ISIMaster. When the ISIMaster receives the message from the ISISlave it first examines it to determine the intended destination and will then copy it into the EP0 FIFO for transmission to the external host. The software running on the ISIMaster is responsible for any arbitration between messages from different sources (including itself) that are all destined for the external host.
The above mechanisms are appropriate for the types of communication outlined in sections 126.96.36.199.5 and 188.8.131.52.6.
126.96.36.199 ISIMaster to ISISlave Communication
All ISIMaster to ISISlave communication takes place over the ISI. Immediately after reset this can only be by means of broadcast messages. Once the bootloader1 program has successfully executed on all SoPECs in a multi-SoPEC system the ISIMaster can communicate with each SoPEC on an individual basis.
If an ISISlave wishes to send a message to the ISIMaster it may do so in response to a ping packet from the ISIMaster. When the ISIMaster receives the message from the ISISlave it must interpret the message to determine if the message contains information required to be sent to the external host. In the case of the ISIMaster being a SoPEC, software will transfer the appropriate information into the EP0 FIFO for transmission to the external host.
The above mechanisms are appropriate for the types of communication outlined in sections 184.108.40.206.3 and 18.104.22.168.4.
184.108.40.206 ISISlave to ISISlave Communication
ISISlave to ISISlave communication is expected to be limited to two special cases: (a) when the PrintMaster is not the ISIMaster and (b) when a storage SoPEC is used. When the PrintMaster is not the ISIMaster then it will need to send control messages (and receive responses to these messages) to other ISISlaves. When a storage SoPEC is present it may need to send data to each SoPEC in the system. All ISISlave to ISISlave communication will take place in response to ping messages from the ISIMaster.
18.104.22.168 Use of the SCB Map in an ISISlave with a External Host Connection
After reset any SoPEC (regardless of ISIMaster/Slave status) with an active USB connection will route packets from EP0,1 to DMA channels 0,1 because the default SCB map is to map EP0 to ISIId0.0 and EP1 to ISIId0.1 and the default ISIId is 0. At some later time the SoPEC learns its true ISIId for the system it is in and re-configures its ISIId and SCB map registers accordingly. Thus if the true ISIId is 3 the external host could reconfigure the SCB map so that EP0 and EP1 (or any other endpoints for that matter) map to ISIId3.0 and 3.1 respectively. The co-ordination of the updating of the ISIId registers and the SCB map is a matter for software to take care of. While the AutoMasterEnable bit of the ISICntrl register is set the external host must not send packets down EP2–4 of the USB connection to the device intended to be an ISISlave. When AutoMasterEnable has been cleared the external host may send data down any endpoint of the USB connection to the ISISlave.
The SCB map of an ISISlave can be configured to route packets from any EP to any ISIId.ISISubId (just as an ISIMaster can). As with an ISIMaster these packets will end up in the SCBTxBuffer but while an ISIMaster would just transmit them when it got a local access slot (from ping arbitration) the ISISlave can only transmit them in response to a ping. All this would happen without CPU intervention on the ISISlave (or ISIMaster) and as long as the ping frequency is sufficiently high it would enable maximum use of the bandwidth on both USB buses.
12.5.3 DMA Manager
The DMA manager manages the flow of data between the SCB and the embedded DRAM. Whilst the CPU could be used for the movement of data in SoPEC, a DMA manager is a more efficient solution as it will handle data in a more predictable fashion with less latency and requiring less buffering. Furthermore a DMA manager is required to support the ISI transfer speed and to ensure that the SoPEC could be used with a high speed ISI-Bridge chip in the future.
The DMA manager utilizes 2 write channels (DMAChannel0, DMAChannel1) and 1 read/write channel (DMAChannel2) to provide 2 independent modes of access to DRAM via the DIU interface:
DIU read and write access is in bursts of 4ū64 bit words. Byte aligned write enables are provided for write access. Data for DIU write accesses will be read directly from the buffers contained in the respective SCB sub-blocks. There is no internal SCB DMA buffer. The DMA manager handles all issues relating to byte/word/longword address alignment, data endianness and transaction scheduling. If a DMA channel is disabled during a DMA access, the access will be completed. Arbitration will be performed between the following DIU access requests:
DMAChannel0 will have absolute priority over any DMA requesters. In the absence of DMAChannel0 DMA requests, arbitration will be performed in a round robin manner, on a per cycle basis over the other channels.
18.104.22.168 DMA Effective Bandwidth
The DIU bandwidth available to the DMA manager must be set to ensure adequate bandwidth for all data sources, to avoid back pressure on the USB and the ISI. This is achieved by setting the output (i.e. DIU) bandwidth to be greater than the combined input bandwidths (i.e. USBD+USBH+ISI).
The required bandwidth is expected to be 160 Mbits/s (1 bit/cycle @ 160 MHz). The guaranteed DIU bandwidth for the SCB is programmable and may need further analysis once there is better knowledge of the data throughput from the USB IP cores.
188.8.131.52 USBD/ISI DMA Access
The DMA manager uses the two independent unidirectional write channels for this type of DMA access, one for each ISISubId, to control the movement of data. Both DMAChannel0 and DMAChannel1 only support write operation and can transfer data from any USB device DMA mapped EP buffer and from the ISI receive buffer to separate circular buffers in DRAM, corresponding to each DMA channel.
While the DMA manager performs the work of moving data the CPU controls the destination and relative timing of data flows to and from the DRAM. The management of the DRAM data buffers requires the CPU to have accurate and timely visibility of both the DMA and PEP memory usage. In other words when the PEP has completed processing of a page band the CPU needs to be aware of the fact that an area of memory has been freed up to receive incoming data. The management of these buffers may also be performed by the external host.
184.108.40.206.1 Circular Buffer Operation
The DMA manager supports the use of circular buffers for both DMAChannels. Each circular buffer is controlled by 5 registers: DMAnBottomAdr, DMAnTopAdr, DMAnMaxAdr, DMAnCurrWPtr and DMAnintAdr. The operation of the circular buffers is shown in
Here we see two snapshots of the status of a circular buffer with (b) occurring sometime after (a) and some CPU writes to the registers occurring in between (a) and (b). These CPU writes are most likely to be as a result of a finished band interrupt (which frees up buffer space) but could also have occurred in a DMA interrupt service routine resulting from DMAnintAdr being hit. The DMA manager will continue filling the free buffer space depicted in (a), advancing the DMAnCurrWPtr after each write to the DIU. Note that the DMACurrWPtr register always points to the next address the DMA manager will write to. When the DMA manager reaches the address in DMAnintAdr (i.e. DMACurrWPtr=DMAnIntAdr) it will generate an interrupt if the DMAnIntAdrMask bit in the DMAMask register is set. The purpose of the DMAnIntAdr register is to alert the CPU that data (such as a control message or a page or band header) has arrived that it needs to process. The interrupt routine servicing the DMA interrupt will change the DMAnIntAdr value to the next location that data of interest to the CPU will have arrived by.
In the scenario shown in
The circular buffer is initialized by writing the top and bottom addresses to the DMAnTopAdr and DMAnBottomAdr registers, writing the start address (which does not have to be the same as the DMAnBottomAdr even though it usually will be) to the DMAnCurrWPtr register and appropriate addresses to the DMAnIntAdr and DMAnMaxAdr registers. The DMA operation will not commence until a 1 has been written to the relevant bit of the DMAChanEn register.
While it is possible to modify the DMAnTopAdr and DMAnBottomAdr registers after the DMA has started it should be done with caution. The DMAnCurrWPtr register should not be written to while the DMAChannel is in operation. DMA operation may be stalled at any time by clearing the appropriate bit of the DMAChanEn register or by disabling an SCB mapping or ISI receive operation.
126.96.36.199.2 Non-standard Buffer Operation
The DMA manager was designed primarily for use with a circular buffer. However because the DMA pointers are tested for equality (i.e. interrupts generated when DMAnCurrWPtr=DMAIntAdr or DMAnCurrWPtr=DMAMaxAdr) and no bounds checking is performed on their values (i.e. neither DMAnIntAdr nor DMAnMaxAdr are checked to see if they lie between DMAnBottomAdr and DMAnTopAdr) a number of non-standard buffer arrangements are possible. These include:
The USBH requires DMA access to DRAM in to provide a communication channel between the USB HC and the USB HCD via a shared memory resource. The DMA manager uses two independent channels for this type of DMA access, one for reads and one for writes. The DRAM addresses provided to the DIU interface are generated based on addresses defined in the USB HC core operational registers, in USBH section 12.3.
188.8.131.52 Cache Coherency
As the CPU will be processing some of the data transferred (particularly control messages and page/band headers) into DRAM by the DMA manager, care needs to be taken to ensure that the data it uses is the most recently transferred data. Because the DMA manager will be updating the circular buffers in DRAM without the knowledge of the cache controller logic in the LEON CPU core the contents of the cache can become outdated. This situation can be easily handled by software, for example by flushing the relevant cache lines, and so there is no hardware support to enforce cache coherency.
12.5.4 ISI Transmit Buffer Arbitration
The SCB control logic will arbitrate access to the ISI transmit buffer (ISITxBuffer) interface on the ISI block. There are two sources of ISI Tx packets:
This arbitration is controlled by the ISlTxBuffArb register which contains a high priority bit for both the CPU and the USB. If only one of these bits is set then the corresponding source always has priority. Note that if the CPU is given absolute priority over the USB, then the software filling the ISI transmit buffer needs to ensure that sufficient USB traffic is allowed through. If both bits of the ISITxBufferArb have the same value then arbitration will take place on a round robin basis.
The control logic will use the USBEPnDest registers, as it will use the CPUISITxBuffCntrl register, to determine the destination of the packets in these buffers. When the ISITxBuffer has space for a packet, the SCB control logic will immediately seek to refill it. Data will be transferred directly from the CPUISITxBuffer and the ISI mapped USB EP OUT buffers to the ISITxBuffer without any intermediate buffering.
As the speed at which the ISITxBuffer can be emptied is at least 5 times greater than it can be filled by USB traffic, the ISI mapped USB EP OUT buffers should not overflow using the above scheme in normal operation. There are a number of scenarios which could lead to the USB EPs being temporarily blocked such as the CPU having priority, retransmissions on the ISI bus, channels being enabled (ChannelEn bit of the USBEPnDest register) with data already in their associated endpoint buffers or short packets being sent on the USB. Care should be taken to ensure that the USB bandwidth is efficiently utilised at all times.
12.5.5 Implementation
22.214.171.124 CTRL Sub-block Partition
Block Diagram
Definition of I/Os
18.104.22.168 SCB Configuration Registers
The SCB register map is listed in Table 38. Registers are grouped according to which SCB sub-block their functionality is associated. All configuration registers reside in the CTRL sub-block. The Reset values in the table indicates the 32 bit hex value that will be returned when the CPU reads the associated address location after reset. All Registers pre-fixed with Hc refer to Host Controller Operational Registers, as defined in the OHCI Spec[19].
The SCB will only allow supervisor mode accesses to data space (i.e. cpu_acode[1:0]=b11). All other accesses will result in scb_cpu_berr being asserted.
TDB: Is read access necessary for ISI Rx/Tx buffers? Could implement the ISI interface as simple FIFOs as opposed to a memory interface.