As readers of ecos-patches will have noticed from earlier this week, the eCos flash driver system has undergone a major revision in the trunk of CVS, based on work that took place on the "flash v2" CVS branch. This work was primarily developed by Andrew Lunn at Ascom and Bart on behalf of eCosCentric, with further additions/fixes/improvements from Nick G and myself also of eCosCentric, and an Atmel dataflash driver from Savin Zlobec of Elatec.
As well as copious cleanup, the main focus of this work was to allow multiple flash drivers and chips simultaneously. The changes to do this have been extensive, and we very much would like people to test and report back in advance of eCos 3.0. Of course since this affects flash drivers, some caution is advised to be sure you don't brick your hardware! The flash driver API has been updated, both for users of the flash API, and for the interface between the generic flash layer and underlying drivers. Existing flash drivers (informally "flash v1" drivers) are still supported in a legacy mode. While they will continue to be supported in the upcoming eCos 3.0 release, the intention is naturally to transfer as many ports as possible to use flash v2 drivers. As well as updating this initial work with many fixes, especially to RedBoot, eCosCentric has added an improved Intel Strataflash flash driver supporting the updated flash interface. And just like the AMD AM29xxxxx driver previously contributed by eCoscentric, it supports CFI to ease flash configuration. Andrew and Bart have also provided an updated synthetic target flash driver, and SST 39VFxxx driver; as well as there being Savin's aforementioned Atmel dataflash driver. For those wishing to update their targets, there is plenty of documentation in the generic package, and also within the AM29xxxxx and Strataflash driver packages if using those parts. You will also find concrete usage examples around the place for each driver. e.g. For AM29xxxxx there is the PPC Adder HAL and for Strataflash, the IXDP425 HAL. If you want to update your favourite targets before the eCos 3.0 release, I recommend looking at that immediately (especially if an FSF copyright assignment is likely to be required). There may still be further changes prior to eCos 3.0, but I think the only thing that is likely to happen may be a minor change to cyg_flash_init(). Jifl -- eCosCentric Limited http://www.eCosCentric.com/ The eCos experts Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK. Tel: +44 1223 245571 Registered in England and Wales: Reg No 4422071. ------["Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere"]------ Opinions==mine -- Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss
