README

README for the T400 uController project
=======================================


Introduction
------------

The T400 µController is an implementation of National's 4-bit COP400
microcontroller family architecture. It is intended to be used as a
replacement for the original chip in SOCs recreating legacy systems.
Its final target is to provide design variants that are compatible with the
COP420/421 and COP410L/411L family members. All of them derived from the
common t400_core design.


Download
--------

Download the latest stable release from github:

  https://github.com/devsaurus/t400

Please keep in mind that this is work in progress and might contain smaller or
bigger problems.
You should also check the Tracker for known bugs and see if they affect your
work.


Installation
------------

Once the directory structure is generated either by check-out from CVS or by
unpacking the tar-archive, the central project initialization file should be
set up. A template called init_project.template.sh is located in the sw
directory where a copy can be edited. Normally, only the definition for the
variable PROJECT_DIR has to be adjusted to the path where the directory
structure is located.
The commands for setting the necessary variables assume a bash/sh-like
shell. In case you run a different shell like csh or ksh, you should adjust
these commands as well.

The meaning of the variables is as follows:

  * PROJECT_DIR
    Points to the root of the project installation. All further references are
    derived from its setting.

  * MAKEFILES
    Identifies the global Makefile for compilation of tests.

These variables must be properly set whenever scripts or makefiles of the T400
project are executed that are related to verification tasks. Otherwise, you
will most likely encounter error messages.

NOTE: The concepts of the mentioned shells require that the init_project.sh is
      run in the context of the shell. I.e. you should 'source' the script
      instead of executing it like a command. This will make sure that the
      variable settings are really effective in the calling shell instance.


Directory Structure
-------------------

The project's directory structure follows the proposal of OpenCores.org.

t400
 |
 \--+-- rtl
    |    |
    |    +-- vhdl           : VHDL code containing the RTL description
    |    |    |               of the core.
    |    |    \-- system    : RTL VHDL code of sample systems.
    |    |
    |    \-- tech           : Technology specific files.
    |         |
    |         +-- cyclone   : Cyclone technology flavor.
    |         |
    |         +-- spartan   : Spartan technology flavor.
    |         |
    |         \-- generic   : Generic RTL designs.
    |
    +-- bench
    |    |
    |    \-- vhdl           : VHDL testbench code.
    |
    +-- sim
    |    |
    |    \-- rtl_sim        : Directory for running simulations.
    |
    +-- syn
    |    |
    |    \-- t421           : T421 toplevel example synthesis.
    |         |
    |         +-- ep1c12    : for Altera Cyclone.
    |         |
    |         \-- xc3s1000  : for Xilinx Spartan3.
    |
    \-- sw                  : General purpose scripts and files.
         |
         \-- verif          : The verification suite.
              |
              +-- include   : Global includes and makefiles.
              |
              +-- black_box : Black-box verification tests.
              |
              +-- int       : Interrupt verification tests.
              |
              \-- system    : General system level tests.


Compiling the VHDL Code
-----------------------

VHDL compilation and simulation tasks take place inside in sim/rtl_sim
directory. The project setup supports only the batch mode of certain
simulators. However, there should be no problems to integrate the testbench
and RTL code into arbitrary simulation environments.

The main file for compilation is Makefile which contains all information
regarding the dependencies of the source files and their compilation
order.

Compilation is based on the make-utility, thus invocation looks like this:

  $ make

This will call ghdl to analzye and elaborate the complete design hierarchy.

    Tristan Gingold's GHDL simulator/compiler, a VHDL front-end for gcc.
    http://ghdl.free.fr/

Make will analyze all VHDL files (RTL and testbench code) and elaborate all
testbench top-levels:

  * tb_t410
    Testbench for the T410 derivative.
    It instantiates the T410 system toplevel and is intended to exectue all
    verifcation tests tagged with 't41x'.

  * tb_t411
    Testbench for the T411 derivative.
    It instantiates the T411 system toplevel and is intended to exectue all
    verifcation tests tagged with 't41x'.

  * tb_t420
    The testbench for the T420 derivative.
    It instantiates the T420 system toplevel and is intended to execute all
    verification tests tagged with 't42x' and 't420'.

  * tb_t421
    The testbench for the T421 derivative.
    It instantiates the T421 system toplevel and is intended to execute all
    verification tests tagged with 't42x'.

  * tb_int
    The testbench for the interrupt verification suite.
    It instantiates the T420 system topevel and is intended to execute all
    verification tests tagged with 'int'.

  * tb_microbus
    The testbench for the microbus verification.
    It instantiates the T420 system toplevel in microbus configuration and is
    intended to execute all verifications tests tagged with 'mb'.

  * tb_prod
    The testbench for the production test.
    It instantiates the T420 system toplevel an checks D and P output ports
    for the patterns generated by the software as proposed in
      "Testing of COP400 Familiy Devices"
      National Semiconductor
      COP Note 7
      April 1991

The Makefile has a 'clean' target to delete all intermediate data:

  $ make clean

The basic simple sequence list can be found in COMPILE_LIST. This can be
useful to quickly set up the analyze stage of any compiler or
synthesizer. Especially when synthesizing the code, you want to skip the VHDL
configurations in *-c.vhd and everything below the bench/ directory.


Preparation of the ROM Files
----------------------------

All testbenches listed above load the internal ROM of the controller from a
file in hex-format. Its existance is mandatory since it is referenced in the
VHDL code of the ROM model lpm_rom.vhd. In case it is missing, the
simulation will stop immediately after elaborating the design.

These files are:

  * rom_41x.hex
    Program ROM compiled for the T41x derivatives. Maximum size 512 bytes.
    Referenced by the t410_notri system.
    Enabled by the 't41x' tag.

  * rom_42x.hex
    Program ROM compiled for the T42x derivatives. Maximum size 1024 bytes.
    Referenced by the t420_notri system.
    Enabled by the 't42x', 't420', 'int', 'mb' and 'prod' tag.

The verification flow for the T400 project generates these two files
automatically from the assembler source files. Whenever the make process
locates one or more of the above tags, it assembles and links the source code
for the repsective derivative.

All regression tests and the general purpose software is organized in a cell
structure. Currently, this means that the software for a cell is contained in
a dedicated directory where the assembler run takes place. In the future,
there will be more aspects to a cell.

Assembling, linking and putting the hex-files in place is under the control of
the make-mechanism. E.g. to assemble the source code of a cell, issue the
following command:

  $ make

The above mention environment variable MAKEFILES enables execution of the make
process from within any subdirectory in the verification tree. This generates
the linker file (test_41x.p and test_42x.p) and derives hex-files which are
placed into the simulation directory. So most likely, for running a test case
or any other software, you will want to issue:

The only supported assembler is Alfred Arnold's macroassembler AS. See

  http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/as/


Verification Environment
------------------------

The verification environment consists of a number of test programs. They are
all self-checking. I.e. after testing the targeted functionality, they emit a
pass/fail information. This information is detected by the testbench which
stops the simulation and prints out the simulation result. This is the default
mechanism for stopping the VHDL simulation.

Pass/fail is signalled by a certain sequence of the L port contents:
(R denotes an optional value stored in A when calling the pass or fail
routines)

  1) L outputs 0x0R
  2) L outputs 0xaR
  3) L outputs 0x5R
  4) L outputs 0x0R -> Pass
     L outputs 0xfR -> Fail

The detection is modelled like a state machine and in case the sequence is of
bytes inside the accumulator does not match, the detection process restarts
from the beginning. This mechanism is part of all verification tests except
for the interrupt testbench.

The complete regression suite can be executed with the run_regression.pl
script. For each test cell, it steps through the sequence

  1) Assemble the source code
  2) Run the compiled VHDL design (currently only GHDL)

It is highly recommended to redirect the output of run_regression.pl into a
file. Otherwise, analyzing the messages related to each test cell is almost
impossible.


Clocking System
---------------

The main clock is supplied at input ck_i. To ease system integration, ck_i can
accept integer multiples of the target clock frequency. Input ck_en_i is used
to qualify rising edges on ck_i as active clock edges. When ck_i is supplied
with the target frequency, ck_en_i can be kept high constantly.


Generic Parameters
------------------

Most generic parameters are provided to set the numerous I/O options. Thus
such options are exhibited on the toplevel designs.
All generics are implemented with integer types to enable analysis of the RTL
code without tool restrictions. The related constants are defined in
t400_opt_pack-p.vhd.

  opt_type_g           : Derivative type - T420, T421, T410, T411
  opt_ck_div_g         : Internal divider on CK
  opt_cko_g            : Enable CKO as general purpose input
  opt_l_out_type_7_g   : Output driver type L[7]
  opt_l_out_type_6_g   : Output driver type L[6]
  opt_l_out_type_5_g   : Output driver type L[5]
  opt_l_out_type_4_g   : Output driver type L[4]
  opt_l_out_type_3_g   : Output driver type L[3]
  opt_l_out_type_2_g   : Output driver type L[2]
  opt_l_out_type_1_g   : Output driver type L[1]
  opt_l_out_type_0_g   : Output driver type L[0]
  opt_microbus_g       : Enable MICROBUS interface
  opt_d_out_type_3_g   : Output driver type D[3]
  opt_d_out_type_2_g   : Output driver type D[2]
  opt_d_out_type_1_g   : Output driver type D[1]
  opt_d_out_type_0_g   : Output driver type D[0]
  opt_g_out_type_3_g   : Output driver type G[3]
  opt_g_out_type_2_g   : Output driver type G[2]
  opt_g_out_type_1_g   : Output driver type G[1]
  opt_g_out_type_0_g   : Output driver type G[0]
  opt_so_output_type_g : Output driver type SO
  opt_sk_output_type_g : Output driver type SK


FPGA Implementation
-------------------

All of the design files contain pure RTL code. This is true even for the
technology specific power-on reset module. Two flavors exist, each of them
implementing the desired behavior in a way that is understood by the design
tools. The RAM for the data memory is described by generic RTL code as
well. It should be translated automatically by the tool chain to a technology
specific RAM macro.

There is a generic method for the program memory ROM as well, although this
project uses a flow where hex-files are loaded by lpm_rom.vhd as the default
method. Convert the ROM image to an RTL VHDL file with one of the two
following commands (either from hex or bin format):

  $ hex2rom -b [rom image file] rom_t41x 9l8s > rom_t41x.vhd
  $ hex2rom -b [rom image file] rom_t42x 10l8s > rom_t42x.vhd

The option -b specifies that <rom image file> contains binary data. Skip this
option to process a file in hex format.

These resulting RTL representations are instantiated by t410_rom-struct-a.vhd
and t420_rom-struct-a.vhd. Altera and Xilinx design tools will detect and
extract the ROM and turn it into a memory macro.