RE: [dsdp-tm-dev] WR Boardfile Descriptions

["Anthony Berent" <Anthony.Berent@xxxxxxx>]

Martin, Aaron et al,

As Aaron says, the SPIRIT consortium have, over the past couple of
years, created a standard (soon to be submitted to IEEE) for describing
hardware IP (particularly SoCs, but also boards etc.) in XML. This
standard effectively provides machine readable data books of the IP
components and systems. While this standard, in origin, targets hardware
design tools, SPIRIT descriptions are quite a close fit to the hardware
target description needs of debuggers and emulators.

Over the last 9 months or so, we, at ARM, have been looking at making
use of SPIRIT within our debug toolchain, and it has become apparent to
us that there would be significant advantages to all concerned (IP
vendors, debugger vendors, hardware design tool vendors, and hardware
and software developers) if SPIRIT were to become the standard for
describing hardware to debuggers. As such we have proposed that the
scope of SPIRIT should be formally extended to include its use for
debug. We have also had some initial discussions on this with a number
of our partners, and have validated that there is wide agreement on the
need for such a standard.

We would now like to propose that DSDP should look at using SPIRIT as
its standard for describing target systems. While I am personally unable
to attend next week's meeting, we do hope to have someone at the
meeting, and would welcome the opportunity to present our proposal in
more detail to both the Device Debug and Target Management subgroups.

- Anthony

--------------------------

Anthony Berent

ARM Ltd

+44 1223 400763
> dsdp-dd-dev] RE: [dsdp-tm-dev] WR Boardfile Descriptions
> From: "Oberhuber, Martin" <Martin.Oberhuber@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2006 21:30:32 +0100
> Delivered-to: dsdp-dd-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Thread-index: AcYEuBnWPAimGiM1RV2+9SboHnyGtgnbUn/gAAcgyjAAE82jYA==
> Thread-topic: [dsdp-tm-dev] WR Boardfile Descriptions
> 
> Hello Aaron,
> 
> I'm forwarding your E-Mail to the dsdp-dev and dsdp-dd-dev mailing
> lists. 
> 
> I'm glad you bring up the issue of standardized hardware descriptions
> again. Yes, this will definitely be a point for discussion in
> Toronto; Doug Gaff also got some contact at ARM who's saying that
> they are working on some standardized hardware description format.
> Doug expects to have more info by the time of the Toronto meeting.    
> 
> I'm going to update the TM agenda accordingly on the Wiki; I'd
> suggest we do it on Thursday in the DD/TM joint session. 
> 
> As you seem to be especially interested and involved, it would be
> great if you could go ahead and drive the discussion further. Is it
> OK if I put your name as presenter for the slot on hardware
> descriptions?   
> 
> To all others: any additional information, existing formats in use,
> and other preparation we can bring to Toronto will certainly be
> helpful.  
> 
> Thanks,
> Martin
> --
> Martin Oberhuber - WindRiver, Austria
> +43(662)457915-85
>  dsdp-tm-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> A little more info: I talked to a colleague of mine in Mentor's SoC
>> division about this, and he advised me that we really should look
>> into what is happening with the Spirit Consortium.
>> http://www.spiritconsortium.com/ They are apparently creating and
>> pushing standards for description of hardware IP using an XML schema.
>> My friend said they are planning on submitting the standard to IEEE
>> this next summer as well. 
>> 
>> Perhaps it may be possible to join a Spirit working group and piggy
>> back our target description efforts.  Or as Martin suggested before,
>> perhaps we can create conversion tools from the Spirit schema to
>> something we decide on as a standard.  It sounds like we need to get
>> a cohesive idea of what we need to see if there is a fit.
>> 
>> cheers,
>> Aaron
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dsdp-tm-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:dsdp-tm-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Spear, Aaron
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 2:23 PM
>> To: Target Management developer discussions
>> Subject: RE: [dsdp-tm-dev] WR Boardfile Descriptions
>> 
>> Martin et al,
>> 
>> A while back you posted this, and I would like to pick the discussion
>> back up.  Is this a topic that others would like to discuss at the TM
>> meeting in Toronto?  I have had the intention since you originally
>> posted of contributing documentation and some samples of the target
>> definition files we use as food for thought as well.  I will try and
>> post them in the next week or sp.  I have personally spent many mind
>> numbing hours transcribing data sheets that someone at the semi's
>> spent many mind numbing hours creating, and would really like to see
>> something happen. (anything! please!)
>> 
>> Are there any hardware folks on this thread that can speak to the
>> existence of relevant standards in the EDA world?  I am sure they
>> have standards for specifying to the N'th degree what sorts of
>> access and timing restrictions there are for a memory mapped
>> peripheral for example, but are there "system level" hardware
>> descriptions that would could fit the needs of debugger vendors? (or
>> could be extended) 
>> 
>> Information such as:
>> -cores on a target, scan chain id's etc -native registers in the core
>> (access restrictions, sizes, processor modes that they are visible
>> in, etc) -address spaces -memory maps for those address spaces
>> (access restrictions on given regions, e.g. flash versus RAM)
>> -memory mapped peripherals (location in memory space, registers it
>> contains) etc 
>> 
>> regards,
>> Aaron
>> 
>> --
>> Aaron Spear
>> Debug Tools Architect
>> Accelerated Technology a Mentor Graphics Division
>> aaron_spear@xxxxxxxxxx
>> 303-679-8457
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dsdp-tm-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
>> [mailto:dsdp-tm-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Oberhuber,
>> Martin Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 9:20 AM
>> To: Target Management developer discussions
>> Subject: [dsdp-tm-dev] WR Boardfile Descriptions
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> In the TM session of the DSDP meeting in Chicago, we came to a point
>> where we noticed that TM wants to provide a common platform for
>> describing the targets (hardware) we are working on.
>> 
>> Currently, every vendor is doing their own hardware descriptions,
>> typically by XML or some other files... they all have to read the
>> specs from silicon vendors, and create their own file formats.
>> That's a lot of wasted work.
>> 
>> We are hoping that at some point it might be possible to create a
>> uniform "standard" file format, or at least provide some converters
>> between various file formats. Ideally, then silicon vendors could
>> provide their specifications in the uniform format (or something
>> convertible). Silicon vendors could become the "experts" for hardware
>> descriptions, users could get patches/updates directly from them...
>> lifting off a lot of work from tool vendors like us.
>> 
>> As a first step, I'm attching a sample and description of the board
>> file specification that Wind River is currently using.
>> 
>> I'd hope that other companies could follow and put their samples or
>> descriptions to the table, such that we can get a feeling of what
>> features are required from a "unified" format, and find out future
>> steps to take. 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Martin
>> 

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