ELANSC400-33AC - Advanced Micro Devices

Embedded Processor Division

Advanced Micro Devices – Embedded Processor Division 1

Running Windows CE "XI P " on the ÉlanSC400 Evaluati on Platform

Dave Tobias, AMD

Introduction and Goal of Document

There has been a lot of recent interest on how to use the Microsoft Windows CE operating system with x86 based

platforms. This article provides the steps for generating an XIP (eXecute In Place) image of the CEPC DEMO7

project for use on the AMD ÉlanSC400 version 3.x evaluation board. The ÉlanSC400 is a highly integrated, system

on a chip which boasts 486/100 MHz CPU performance, fully integrated PC/AT compatibility, power ma nagement,

PCMCIA, and much more. The ÉlanSC400 version 3.x evaluation bo a rd is a software development platform, which

is available directly from AMD.

The information given here assumes that the release version of the Wind ows CE 2.0 Embedded T oolkit (ETK) for

Visual C++ 5. 0 has been fres hly installed onto an NT based build station. Fro m this base installation it will be

shown ho w to build a Flash-resident CE image of the DEMO7 project, burn it into the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board

application Flash banks, and then run it XIP on this platfor m. A set of files, including a working boot loader for CE

running on the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board, is available for use in conjunction with this document. All supporting

files may be obtained by requesting them via email from EPD.SUPPORT@AMD.COM. In the interest of brevity,

is assumed that you have a working knowledge of the basic CE setup and build process. Further detail on this

subject is available by sending a req uest referencing this article to the ab ove email address.

Some History

One of Microsoft’s ETK goals was to provide a fast-path build process for several demo projects for each supported

CPU. Engineers could use these samples as a starting point for their own products. To support the ETK, a standard

platform was de veloped for the demos: the Hitachi D9000 (ODO) board. Through the use of a swappable CPU card,

this single hardware platform could run CE on several CPU types such as the SH3, MIPS, PPC, etc. However, until

shortly after CE 2.0 was released, there was no X86 CP U card available for the ODO platform. Thus, while all other

CPU types were tested with the ODO board, the x86 CE kernel was tested on a standard PC using drivers written

especially for the standard PC/AT compatible peripherals.

The term "CEPC" is often used loosely to refer to the operating system itself, and this has sometimes lead to

confusion. CEPC is really several things bundled to gether. First and foremost, however it is the same 32 bit,

multitaski ng Windows CE operating system that runs on the ODO platform, HP/Cs, and man y o ther existing

platforms. It is not a DOS program, an emulation of CE, or any other such thing. In fact, the main difference

between the CEPC and ODO environments is t hat CEPC relies on PC/AT BI OS to initialize the system, and PC

DOS (along with LOADCEPC.EXE) to place the CE image into RAM.

The decision to use a PC as the standard platfor m for X86 had some decided advantages for getting x86 support into

the ETK quickly. While running from RAM is a great sanity check, and can be used to develop drivers on a

standard P C while the target hard ware is being built, a "real world" product running CE may no t want to include

BIOS or DOS. Standard CEPC requires both of these, and the ETK does not explain how to eliminate the

requirement for them. T his can be a real problem for those x86 customers wis hing to test Windows CE in a "real

product" type environment on platforms such as the AMD ÉlanSC400 evaluation board. What's needed is the option

to have CE boot up and run XIP from Flash on an x86 platfor m. The goal of this document and associated software

collateral is to enable this as a new x86 b uild option. Individual steps are given for p e rforming each task followed

by more detail as necessary.

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Baseline the Basic OS Build Process by Creating a "Run From RAM" Image

GOAL: To build the standard ETK CEPC DEMO7 image, and run it from RAM on the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board

as a sanity check that the ETK is installed properly.

1. On the NT-based build machine create a CEPC DEMO7 build window shortcut by copying the x86 DEMO1

shortcut which was installed by the ETK, and the n renaming it to "CEPC DEMO7". Now open the shortcut

properties, and change WINCE.BAT's "DEMO1" command line para meter to "DEMO7".

2. Double click on the new shortcut to open a CEPC build window for DEMO7. At the DOS command prompt,

set the environment variable CEPC_DDI_VGA8BPP=1.

3. Build the operating system image by running BLDDEMO.BAT from the \WINCE directory. The resulting

operating system image file is called NK.BIN.

4. Ensure your ÉlanSC400 evaluation board has a standard keyboard, PS/2 mouse, and ISA VGA card installed,

and then boot it to DOS. Note that the LOADCEPC.EXE utility requires HIMEM.SYS to be in your

CONFIG.SYS.

5. Copy the NK.BIN image to the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board.

6. Use the ETK's LOADCEP C.EXE utility to lo ad the O/S image into memory and then pas s co ntrol to it as

follows: LOADCE PC NK.BIN [enter]. After a few seco nds you should see the ful l handheld PC (H/PC) demo

run.

The above steps take you through the basic process of building the DEMO7 project on the ETK for the CEPC

platform. Before changing anything on the ET K to support Flash based operations, you should familiarize yourself

with building the ETK CEPC DEMO7 project for x86. Note that a standard CEPC NK.BIN image will run on the

ÉlanSC400 evaluation board with no modifications since the ÉlanSC400 device is fully PC/AT compatible. The

resulting image assumes that you do not have an ISA version of one of the graphics cards (such as those based on

the S3 Trio64 chip, Tseng labs, or ATI) for which high resolution CE drivers exist. Thus, the

CEPC_DDI_VGA8BPP environment is used to configure a lower resolution graphics mode of 320x200x8BPP.

The NK.BIN file for the DEMO7 project can be 5 MB or larger. Perhaps the best file transfer method is to use a

network card (such as the AMD PCNET-ISA card) in one of the ÉlanSC400’s ISA slots to communicate with the

build machine. Instructions for getting the PC NET-ISA card set up on the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board under DOS

may be obtained from EPD.SUPPORT@AMD.COM.

Build and Install th e CE Boot Loader

GOAL: To build and install the Windows CE boot loader that is supplied by AMD for the ÉlanSC400 evaluation

plat form, versio n 3.x.

1. Use the supplied MAKE.BAT file to build the boot loader using Borland TASM/TLINK, and Paradigm Locate.

2. Configure JP 36 on the ÉlanSC400 rev 3.x evaluation board so that ROMCS0 is routed to the 4MB Resident

Flash Array (RFA). Now run E4FFLASH.EXE as follo ws: E4FLASH cs0:F0000 BOOTLOAD.BIN [enter],

and then E4FLASH cs0:3F0000 BOOTLOAD.BIN [enter].

3. Configure the boot ROM width (SW3[2] ) to the 16-bit position.

4. Cycle power to test the installation. If properly installed, you should see the port 680h/80h LEDs be set to 01C5.

Following this, you should see the sign-on screen from your graphics card's VG A BIOS (if applicable). If you

don't get 01C5 on the LEDs, or if the system hangs, power off the evaluation board and wait 3 seconds, then

power back on.

By the time that Windows CE gets control of the system, it expects the x86 CPU to be in 32 bit protect mode, and

the system hardware to be initialized. Standa rd CEPC relies on system BI OS to handle the details of coming up at

reset. Removing the BIOS requirement is nontrivial since the default CE 2.0 ETK tools and build environment does

not easily support x86 CPUs at boot time. To work around this, a stand-alone boot loader was developed for the

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ÉlanSC400 evaluation platform. This boot loader is built outside of the Windows CE tools environment. Building

the example boot loader requires Borland Turbo assembler 4.0+, Borland TLINK.EXE 7.0+ and Paradigm Locate

version 5.10a+. After getting control directly from the x86 reset vector, the boot loader initializes the CPU, chip set,

and graphics card before passing control to CE.

The boot loader code was intentionally minimized for quicker understanding. Thus, the sample boot loader may

require additions to the ÉlanSC400 initialization tables, etc. to support any new features that you may add. The boot

loader code targets the ÉlanSC400 version 3.x evaluation board, and requires cha nges to run on version 2.x boards.

The boot loader performs the following tasks:

• Places the ÉlanSC400’s 486 CPU core into 32-bit protect mode using a flat me mory model.

• Enables system DRAM. This is hard-coded to support the DRAM that comes standard with the 3.0

evaluation board. A dynamic memory sizing routine for the ÉlanSC400 is available upon request from

EPD.SUPPORT@AMD.COM.

• Performs main ÉlanSC400 CSC register initialization which handles ISA bus setup, PIRQ routing, etc.

• Sets up the system memory map. The ÉlanSC400's MMS windows E and F are used to provide contiguous

access to Flash banks 1 and 2 starting at 32 MB in syste m address space. After MMS window in itialization,

the system memory map appears as follows:

Start Address Stop Address Resource

FFFFFFF0 FFFFFFFF Boot vector hook: Far jmp to boot loader code below 1MB

02800000 FFFFFFEF Unused

02400000 027FFFFF 4 MB accessed via MMSF, which generates ROMCS2

02000000 023FFFFF 4 MB accessed via MMSE, which generates ROMCS1

01000000 01FFFFFF Space for up to 16 MB more of system DRAM

00100000 00FFFFFF 15 MB system DRAM for windows CE

000F0000 000FFFFF Boot loader code/data (ROMCS0)

000D0000 000EFFFF Maps to ISA bus

000C0000 000CFFFF Reserved for graphics adapter ROM

000B0000 000BFFFF Maps to ISA bus

000A0000 000AFFFF VGA graphics buffer

00000000 0009FFFF System RAM used only by boot loader

• Initializes VGA graphics. The boot loader assumes the use of an ISA based graphics adapter that has an

onboard BIOS extension R OM. The VGA BIOS on the graphics adapter is called to initialize the graphics

adapter.

• Sets up a pointer to the CEPC parameters. The LOADCEPC.EXE utilit y takes some command line

parameters. Since the boot loader replaces BIOS, DOS, and LOADCEPC.EXE, it must perform all

applicable tasks of these software components. The boot loader maintains a 4 byte global array containing

the emulated LOADCEPC.EXE parameters.

• Passes control to the CE image. This is done by jumpi n g to offset 0 of the CE image at absolute physical

address 32MB.

Since the boot loader will reside in ROM/Flash the use of a locator is required. The file BOOTLOAD.CFG has been

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Advanced Micro Devices – Embedded Processor Division 4

provided for use with Paradigm Locate. Once the boot loader is built, the E4FLASH.EXE utility can be used to

write it into one of the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board's ROMCS0 boot Flash banks. For brevity, only the installation

of the boot loader to the 4MB ROMCS0 RFA is discussed. This allows system BIOS to remain in the 128Kb DIP

device so that you can easily boot either CE or DOS. The 4MB ROMCS1 and ROM CS2 RFAs (8MB total) are

available for the XIP Windows CE image.

Upgrade the B ase CEPC Files

GOAL: As shipped from the factory, the ETK does not expose the x86 page tables, which are required in order to

support XIP operation. The following steps apply a patch that expose the page tables to the programmer.

1. Patch the ETK. First, change to the \WINCE directory, the n: PKUNZIP –D P AGET ABL.ZIP [enter] .

2. Do a complete re-build of the ETK so that you can verify the build environment is still OK. To do this, delete

the \WINCE\RELEASE directory, and then close the CE build window. Now re-open the windo w, and re-build

per the steps given earlier.

Step 1 above applies a Microsoft-supplied patch to the ETK to allow programmer access to the x86 page tables.

This is required in order to support XIP operation because the pre-patch ETK page tables are hard coded and do not

provide mappings for the Flash where CE will XIP from. The patch copies several files into the \WINCE d irectory

structure including \WINCE\PLATFORM\CEPC\KERNEL\HAL\x86\OEMINIT.ASM. This new file contains the

code that sets up the x86 page tables. Note that the patch simply exposes the page tables for potential modification.

No SC400 specific mappings are included with the patch's OEMINIT.ASM.

It is advised that you do a full rebuild of the ETK after applying the patch to ensure sanity. Assuming a successful

build, ascertain that OEMINIT.ASM was really built by verifying the presence of the following file:

\WINCE\PLATFORM\SC400\KERNEL\HAL\OBJ\x86\i486\CE\RETAIL\OEMINIT.OBJ.

Create an ÉlanSC400 Specific Build Window and Platform Directory

GOAL: Reduce impact of SC400 specific changes on the rest of the build tree by creating a new SC400 "platform"

directory. Also, make an ÉlanSC400 specific DEMO7 build window shortcut.

1. Create an ÉlanSC400-specific DEMO7 build window shortcut by copying the existing CEPC DEMO7 shortcut

to one named "SC400", and then replacing the new shortcut's WINCE.BAT "CEPC" parameter with "SC400".

2. Create a new platform subdirectory for the ÉlanSC400 by going to the \WINCE \PLATFORM directory, and

typing in: XCOPY CEPC SC400 /e /i [enter]

3. Update the \WINCE\PLATFORM\SC400\KERNEL\HAL\X86\OEMINIT.ASM file with the ÉlanSC400

evaluation board specific version of this file supplied by AMD.

The easiest way to create the shortcut mentioned in step 1 is to copy the CEPC DEMO7 shortcut that you made

earlier, rename it, and then change the properties. In the copy, change the WINCE.B AT command line's "CEPC"

parameter to "SC400". Note that "SC400" MUST be entered verbatim. If not, the case sensitive comparisons that

are done in the build environment's batch files will fail. Now you have an icon that will open a n SC400-specific

DEMO7 build window.

The reason for step 2 above is to allow your SC400 changes to exist in their own subdirectory. This way, if you

make a mistake you can easily start over from a known good platform. For this step, the case of the directory name

doesn't matter.

Step 3 above is required because the default OEMINIT.ASM that's provided by the ETK patch doesn't know that the

ÉlanSC400 evaluation board's memory map will include 8 MB of Flash starting at 32MB. The modified version

supplied by AMD contains the appropriate page table entries.

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Upgrade CONFIG.BIB and BLDDEMO.BAT

GOAL: The default CEPC DEMO7 CONFIG.BIB and BLDDEMO.BAT files will not support XIP images, so

update them with files provided by AMD.

1. Copy the CONFIG.BIB file supplied by AMD into the \WINCE\PLATFORM\SC400\FILES directory.

2. Copy the BLDDEMO.B AT file supp lied by AMD into the \WINCE\PUBLIC\DEMO7\OAK\MISC directory.

Some ETK build environment changes were required in order to support x86 platform XIP operation, and these

changes affect the CONFIG.BIB and BLDDEMO.BAT files. The follo wing text explains the changes that were

made to the original files to support XIP operation. The changes do not detract from the original ability to build

an image that will run from RAM.

The CONFIG.BIB file tells the CE locato r where in the memory map the executable code (i.e. kernel, etc.) will be

located, where system RAM resides, and provides other information pertinent to the build process. The locator uses

this address information when providing internal code reference fixups. For a given hard ware platform, the locator

must use different addresses to fix up the internal references when running XIP from Flash as opposed to when

running from RAM. The IMGFLASH environment variable was added to CONFIG.BIB to allow build time

selection of RAM versus Flash memory maps. When the e nvironment variable IMGFLASH=1, the image will be

built with the Flas h based memory map. Otherwise the RAM memory map will be used.

Also, the new CONFIG.BIB file causes a "flat" binary image (NK.NB0) to be generated when CE is built with

IMGFLASH=1 (see the CONFIG.B IB "ABX" option in the ETK d ocs for more info). Note that NK.BIN is not a

simple, flat binary image. Instead, it’s a collection of binary image s, each with its own header, concatenated into a

single file. The AMD E4FLASH.EXE utility does not know about the .BIN file format, so a true "flat" image is

required.

The BLDDEMO.BAT file must also be updated to remove the explicit setting of the IMGFLASH environment

variable to NULL. We will want the option to set this environment variable manually from the DOS command line.

Also, the original ETK build environment knows about 2 platforms: "ODO" and "CEPC", and BLDDEMO.BAT

compares an environment variable that holds the platform name to these string constants. If the platform name is not

"CEPC", then the ODO platform is assumed. Thus the comparison must also look for the string "SC400", or the

build will fail. It should be noted that because BLDDEMO.BAT is not located beneath the SC400 platform

directory, it is not an ÉlanSC400 specific file. However, the changes made will not negatively effect the build of

DEMO7 on other platforms.

At this point you should be able to build the RAM based x86 based CE image using the SC400 buil d wi ndow. As a

sanity check it is suggested that you do a from-scratch rebuild (and test run) of the RAM based version of the OS in

order to test the installation of the changes. The rebuild process is similar to the CEPC baseline build procedure

described earlier. Note that a RAM based image built using the SC400 DEMO7 build windo w will be identical to a

RAM based image built with the original using the CEPC DEMO7 build window. The SC400 images only differ

whe n you se t IMG F L AS H = 1 .

Build a Flash Based Image

GOAL: You have verified that you can build a RAM based CE image using an SC400-specific build window. Now

build the XIP image from the still-open build window as follo ws:

1. Configure t he environment variable to enable XIP builds: set IMGFLASH=1[enter].

2. From the \WINCE\RELEASE directory, just type MAKEIMG[enter]. T he XIP image will be made in about 30

seconds, and will be 8MB in size. You can find it in \WINCE\RELEASE, and it will be called NK.NB0 .

Building a Flash based image at this point is si mpl y a matter of running the locator again using the Flash-specific

memory mappings from CONFIG.BIB. That's why the above steps tell you to se t the e nvironment variable

IMGFLASH=1 and then run MAKEIMG. MAKEIMG runs the locator, and then combines the resulting binaries

into the CE NK.NB 0 image.

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Advanced Micro Devices – Embedded Processor Division 6

Burn the ÉlanSC400 Evaluation Board RFA and Boot the Image

GOAL: To write NK.NB0 to the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board RFA banks and then boot and execute CE from

Flash.

1. Either copy the image to the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board, or (from the ÉlanSC400 board) mount your \WINCE

build directory as a remote disk. Change directory so the current directory on your evaluation board contains

the NK.NB0 image.

2. Make sure that the ROMCS1 and ROMCS2 jumpers (JP37 and JP38) point to their respective RFA banks, not

to the DIP Flash.

3. Using E4FLASH.EXE version 1.01 or later, enter the following commands at the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board's

DOS command: E4FLASH CS1:0 –s0 –f3FFFFF nk.nb0 [enter]. Then type E4FLASH CS2:0 –s400000 –

f7FFFFF nk. nb 0 [enter ].

4. Ensure that the CS0 jumper and x8/x16 boot ROM switch are properly set (see instructions above).

5. Connect a null modem cable from the 9 pin "D" connector that's silk-screened "SERIAL" on the ÉlanSC400 to

a terminal emulator whic h is set up for 115.2k, N, 8, 1.

6. Power the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board down, wait 3 seconds, and then power it up. Watch the terminal

emulator as CE boot-up messages are displayed. The evaluation board should boot to the H/PC desktop GUI

within about 15 seconds.

The NK.NB0 file will be burnt into the x16-1 and x16-2 Flash banks on the ÉlanSC400 revision 3 evaluation board.

Due to the large file sizes involved with CE builds, it's recommended t hat you network the evaluation bo ard to the

build station, and mount the build station's \WINCE directory as a remote drive on the ÉlanSC400 evaluation board.

Now the image can be written to Flash directly from the mounted disk.

NK.NB0 is an 8MB image that needs to get burnt across two 4 MB Flash banks. E4FLASH.EXE version 1.01

(included in the files provided by AMD) and later can burn portions of a file into Flash. Before attempting to burn

in the image you must ensure that the ROMCS1 and ROMCS2 jumpers are properly installed to route these chip

selects to the x1 6-1 and x16-2 Flash banks respectively. To ascertain this, invoke E4FL ASH.EXE with no

parameters. At the bottom of the resulting help screen E4FLASH.EXE will display what devices it has auto-detected

for each of the ÉlanSC400 ROMCSx signals.

Once all of the above steps are co mpleted you should see lots of messages coming fro m CE as it boots. Some of the

messages may indicate that errors ha ve occurred but this is normal. Experience will tell you which error messages

really require corrective action.

cexipsml.d oc amd/dft 09/20/1998

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Élan is a trademark of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

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