B4860QDS

The B4860QDS is a Freescale reference board that hosts the B4860 SoC (and variants).

B4860 Overview

The B4860 QorIQ Qonverge device is a Freescale high-end, multicore SoC based on StarCore and Power Architecture® cores. It targets the broadband wireless infrastructure and builds upon the proven success of the existing multicore DSPs and Power CPUs. It is designed to bolster the rapidly changing and expanding wireless markets, such as 3GLTE (FDD and TDD), LTE-Advanced, and UMTS.

The B4860 is a highly-integrated StarCore and Power Architecture processor that contains:

  • Six fully-programmable StarCore SC3900 FVP subsystems, divided into three clusters-each core runs up to 1.2 GHz, with an architecture highly optimized for wireless base station applications

  • Four dual-thread e6500 Power Architecture processors organized in one cluster-each core runs up to 1.8 GHz

  • Two DDR3/3L controllers for high-speed, industry-standard memory interface each runs at up to 1866.67 MHz

  • MAPLE-B3 hardware acceleration-for forward error correction schemes including Turbo or Viterbi decoding, Turbo encoding and rate matching, MIMO MMSE equalization scheme, matrix operations, CRC insertion and check, DFT/iDFT and FFT/iFFT calculations, PUSCH/PDSCH acceleration, and UMTS chip rate acceleration

  • CoreNet fabric that fully supports coherency using MESI protocol between the e6500 cores, SC3900 FVP cores, memories and external interfaces. CoreNet fabric interconnect runs at 667 MHz and supports coherent and non-coherent out of order transactions with prioritization and bandwidth allocation amongst CoreNet endpoints.

  • Data Path Acceleration Architecture, which includes the following:

    • Frame Manager (FMan), which supports in-line packet parsing and general classification to enable policing and QoS-based packet distribution
    • Queue Manager (QMan) and Buffer Manager (BMan), which allow offloading of queue management, task management, load distribution, flow ordering, buffer management, and allocation tasks from the cores
    • Security engine (SEC 5.3)-crypto-acceleration for protocols such as IPsec, SSL, and 802.16
    • RapidIO manager (RMAN) - Support SRIO types 8, 9, 10, and 11 (inbound and outbound). Supports types 5, 6 (outbound only)
  • Large internal cache memory with snooping and stashing capabilities for bandwidth saving and high utilization of processor elements. The 9856-Kbyte internal memory space includes the following:

    • 32 Kbyte L1 ICache per e6500/SC3900 core
    • 32 Kbyte L1 DCache per e6500/SC3900 core
    • 2048 Kbyte unified L2 cache for each SC3900 FVP cluster
    • 2048 Kbyte unified L2 cache for the e6500 cluster
    • Two 512 Kbyte shared L3 CoreNet platform caches (CPC)
  • Sixteen 10-GHz SerDes lanes serving:

    • Two Serial RapidIO interfaces
    • Each supports up to 4 lanes and a total of up to 8 lanes
  • Up to 8-lanes Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) controller for glue-less antenna connection

  • Two 10-Gbit Ethernet controllers (10GEC)

  • Six 1G/2.5-Gbit Ethernet controllers for network communications

  • PCI Express controller

  • Debug (Aurora)

  • Two OCeaN DMAs

  • Various system peripherals

  • 182 32-bit timers

B4860QDS Overview

  • DDRC1: Ten separate DDR3 parts of 16-bit to support 72-bit (ECC) at 1866MT/s, ECC, 4 GB of memory in two ranks of 2 GB.

  • DDRC2: Five separate DDR3 parts of 16-bit to support 72-bit (ECC) at 1866MT/s, ECC, 2 GB of memory. Single rank.

  • SerDes 1 multiplexing: Two Vitesse (transmit and receive path) cross-point 16x16 switch VSC3316

  • SerDes 2 multiplexing: Two Vitesse (transmit and receive path) cross-point 8x8 switch VSC3308

  • USB 2.0 ULPI PHY USB3315 by SMSC supports USB port in host mode. B4860 UART port is available over USB-to-UART translator USB2SER or over RS232 flat cable.

  • A Vitesse dual SGMII phy VSC8662 links the B4860 SGMII lines to 2xRJ-45 copper connectors for Stand-alone mode and to the 1000Base-X over AMC MicroTCA connector ports 0 and 2 for AMC mode.

  • The B4860 configuration may be loaded from nine bits coded reset configuration reset source. The RCW source is set by appropriate DIP-switches.

  • 16-bit NOR Flash / PROMJet

  • QIXIS 8-bit NOR Flash Emulator

  • 8-bit NAND Flash

  • 24-bit SPI Flash

  • Long address I2C EEPROM

  • Available debug interfaces are:

    • On-board eCWTAP controller with ETH and USB I/F
    • JTAG/COP 16-pin header for any external TAP controller
    • External JTAG source over AMC to support B2B configuration
    • 70-pin Aurora debug connector
  • QIXIS (FPGA) logic:
    • 2 KB internal memory space including
  • IDT840NT4 clock synthesizer provides B4860 essential clocks : SYSCLK, DDRCLK1,2 and RTCCLK.

  • Two 8T49N222A SerDes ref clock devices support two SerDes port clock frequency - total four refclk, including CPRI clock scheme.

B4420 Personality

B4420 is a reduced personality of B4860 with less core/clusters(both SC3900 and e6500), less DDR controllers, less serdes lanes, less SGMII interfaces and reduced target frequencies.

Key differences between B4860 and B4420

B4420 has:

  1. Less e6500 cores: 1 cluster with 2 e6500 cores
  2. Less SC3900 cores/clusters: 1 cluster with 2 SC3900 cores per cluster
  3. Single DDRC
  4. 2X 4 lane serdes
  5. 3 SGMII interfaces
  6. no sRIO
  7. no 10G

B4860QDS Default Settings

Switch Settings

SW1  OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0]
SW2  ON      ON      ON      ON      ON      ON      OFF     OFF
SW3  OFF     OFF     OFF     ON      OFF     OFF     ON      OFF
SW5  OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     ON      ON

Note:

  • PCIe slots modes: All the PCIe devices work as Root Complex.
  • Boot location: NOR flash.

SysClk/Core(e6500)/CCB/DDR/FMan/DDRCLK/StarCore/CPRI-Maple/eTVPE-Maple/ULB-Maple 66MHz/1.6GHz/667MHz/1.6GHz data rate/667MHz/133MHz/1200MHz/500MHz/800MHz/667MHz

NAND boot:

SW1 [1.1] = 0
SW2 [1.1] = 1
SW3 [1:4] = 0001

NOR boot:

SW1 [1.1] = 1
SW2 [1.1] = 0
SW3 [1:4] = 1000

B4420QDS Default Settings

Switch Settings

SW1  OFF[0]  OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0] OFF [0]
SW2  ON      OFF     ON      OFF     ON      ON      OFF     OFF
SW3  OFF     OFF     OFF     ON      OFF     OFF     ON      OFF
SW5  OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     OFF     ON      ON

Note:

  • PCIe slots modes: All the PCIe devices work as Root Complex.
  • Boot location: NOR flash.

SysClk/Core(e6500)/CCB/DDR/FMan/DDRCLK/StarCore/CPRI-Maple/eTVPE-Maple/ULB-Maple 66MHz/1.6GHz/667MHz/1.6GHz data rate/667MHz/133MHz/1200MHz/500MHz/800MHz/667MHz

NAND boot:

SW1 [1.1] = 0
SW2 [1.1] = 1
SW3 [1:4] = 0001

NOR boot:

SW1 [1.1] = 1
SW2 [1.1] = 0
SW3 [1:4] = 1000

Memory map on B4860QDS

The addresses in brackets are physical addresses.

Start Address End Address Description Size
0xF_FFDF_1000 0xF_FFFF_FFFF Free 2 MB
0xF_FFDF_0000 0xF_FFDF_0FFF IFC - FPGA 4 KB
0xF_FF81_0000 0xF_FFDE_FFFF Free 5 MB
0xF_FF80_0000 0xF_FF80_FFFF IFC NAND Flash 64 KB
0xF_FF00_0000 0xF_FF7F_FFFF Free 8 MB
0xF_FE00_0000 0xF_FEFF_FFFF CCSRBAR 16 MB
0xF_F801_0000 0xF_FDFF_FFFF Free 95 MB
0xF_F800_0000 0xF_F800_FFFF PCIe I/O Space 64 KB
0xF_F600_0000 0xF_F7FF_FFFF QMAN s/w portal 32 MB
0xF_F400_0000 0xF_F5FF_FFFF BMAN s/w portal 32 MB
0xF_F000_0000 0xF_F3FF_FFFF Free 64 MB
0xF_E800_0000 0xF_EFFF_FFFF IFC NOR Flash 128 MB
0xF_E000_0000 0xF_E7FF_FFFF Promjet 128 MB
0xF_A0C0_0000 0xF_DFFF_FFFF Free 1012 MB
0xF_A000_0000 0xF_A0BF_FFFF MAPLE0/1/2 12 MB
0xF_0040_0000 0xF_9FFF_FFFF Free 12 GB
0xF_0000_0000 0xF_01FF_FFFF DCSR 32 MB
0xC_4000_0000 0xE_FFFF_FFFF Free 11 GB
0xC_3000_0000 0xC_3FFF_FFFF sRIO-2 I/O 256 MB
0xC_2000_0000 0xC_2FFF_FFFF sRIO-1 I/O 256 MB
0xC_0000_0000 0xC_1FFF_FFFF PCIe Mem Space 512 MB
0x1_0000_0000 0xB_FFFF_FFFF Free 44 GB
0x0_8000_0000 0x0_FFFF_FFFF DDRC1 2 GB
0x0_0000_0000 0x0_7FFF_FFFF DDRC2 2 GB

Memory map on B4420QDS

The addresses in brackets are physical addresses.

Start Address End Address Description Size
0xF_FFDF_1000 0xF_FFFF_FFFF Free 2 MB
0xF_FFDF_0000 0xF_FFDF_0FFF IFC - FPGA 4 KB
0xF_FF81_0000 0xF_FFDE_FFFF Free 5 MB
0xF_FF80_0000 0xF_FF80_FFFF IFC NAND Flash 64 KB
0xF_FF00_0000 0xF_FF7F_FFFF Free 8 MB
0xF_FE00_0000 0xF_FEFF_FFFF CCSRBAR 16 MB
0xF_F801_0000 0xF_FDFF_FFFF Free 95 MB
0xF_F800_0000 0xF_F800_FFFF PCIe I/O Space 64 KB
0xF_F600_0000 0xF_F7FF_FFFF QMAN s/w portal 32 MB
0xF_F400_0000 0xF_F5FF_FFFF BMAN s/w portal 32 MB
0xF_F000_0000 0xF_F3FF_FFFF Free 64 MB
0xF_E800_0000 0xF_EFFF_FFFF IFC NOR Flash 128 MB
0xF_E000_0000 0xF_E7FF_FFFF Promjet 128 MB
0xF_A0C0_0000 0xF_DFFF_FFFF Free 1012 MB
0xF_A000_0000 0xF_A0BF_FFFF MAPLE0/1/2 12 MB
0xF_0040_0000 0xF_9FFF_FFFF Free 12 GB
0xF_0000_0000 0xF_01FF_FFFF DCSR 32 MB
0xC_4000_0000 0xE_FFFF_FFFF Free 11 GB
0xC_3000_0000 0xC_3FFF_FFFF sRIO-2 I/O 256 MB
0xC_2000_0000 0xC_2FFF_FFFF sRIO-1 I/O 256 MB
0xC_0000_0000 0xC_1FFF_FFFF PCIe Mem Space 512 MB
0x1_0000_0000 0xB_FFFF_FFFF Free 44 GB
0x0_0000_0000 0x0_FFFF_FFFF DDRC1 4 GB

NOR Flash memory Map on B4860 and B4420QDS

Start End Definition Size
0xEFF40000 0xEFFFFFFF U-Boot (current bank) 768KB
0xEFF20000 0xEFF3FFFF U-Boot env (current bank) 128KB
0xEFF00000 0xEFF1FFFF FMAN Ucode (current bank) 128KB
0xEF300000 0xEFEFFFFF rootfs (alternate bank) 12MB
0xEE800000 0xEE8FFFFF device tree (alternate bank) 1MB
0xEE020000 0xEE6FFFFF Linux.uImage (alternate bank) 6MB+896KB
0xEE000000 0xEE01FFFF RCW (alternate bank) 128KB
0xEDF40000 0xEDFFFFFF U-Boot (alternate bank) 768KB
0xEDF20000 0xEDF3FFFF U-Boot env (alternate bank) 128KB
0xEDF00000 0xEDF1FFFF FMAN ucode (alternate bank) 128KB
0xED300000 0xEDEFFFFF rootfs (current bank) 12MB
0xEC800000 0xEC8FFFFF device tree (current bank) 1MB
0xEC020000 0xEC6FFFFF Linux.uImage (current bank) 6MB+896KB
0xEC000000 0xEC01FFFF RCW (current bank) 128KB

Various Software configurations/environment variables/commands

The below commands apply to both B4860QDS and B4420QDS.

U-Boot environment variable hwconfig

The default hwconfig is:

hwconfig=fsl_ddr:ctlr_intlv=null,bank_intlv=cs0_cs1;usb1:dr_mode=host,phy_type=ulpi

Note: For USB gadget set “dr_mode=peripheral”

FMAN Ucode versions

fsl_fman_ucode_B4860_106_3_6.bin

Switching to alternate bank

Commands for switching to alternate bank.

  1. To change from vbank0 to vbank2
=> qixis_reset altbank (it will boot using vbank2)
  1. To change from vbank2 to vbank0
=> qixis reset (it will boot using vbank0)

To change personality of board

For changing personality from B4860 to B4420

  1. Boot from vbank0
  2. Flash vbank2 with b4420 rcw and U-Boot
  3. Give following commands to uboot prompt
=> mw.b ffdf0040 0x30;
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x00;
=> mw.b ffdf0062 0x02;
=> mw.b ffdf0050 0x02;
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x30;
=> reset

Note:

  • Power off cycle will lead to default switch settings.
  • 0xffdf0000 is the address of the QIXIS FPGA.

Switching between NOR and NAND boot(RCW src changed from NOR <-> NAND)

To change from NOR to NAND boot give following command on uboot prompt

=> mw.b ffdf0040 0x30
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x00
=> mw.b 0xffdf0050 0x08
=> mw.b 0xffdf0060 0x82
=> mw.b ffdf0061 0x00
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x30
=> reset

To change from NAND to NOR boot give following command on uboot prompt:

=> mw.b ffdf0040 0x30
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x00
=> mw.b 0xffdf0050 0x00(for vbank0) or (mw.b 0xffdf0050 0x02 for vbank2)
=> mw.b 0xffdf0060 0x12
=> mw.b ffdf0061 0x01
=> mw.b ffdf0010 0x30
=> reset

Note:

  • Power off cycle will lead to default switch settings.
  • 0xffdf0000 is the address of the QIXIS FPGA.

Ethernet interfaces for B4860QDS

Serdes protocosl tested: * 0x2a, 0x8d (serdes1, serdes2) [DEFAULT] * 0x2a, 0xb2 (serdes1, serdes2)

When using [DEFAULT] RCW, which including 2 * 1G SGMII on board and 2 * 1G SGMII on SGMII riser card.

Under U-Boot these network interfaces are recognized as:

FM1@DTSEC3, FM1@DTSEC4, FM1@DTSEC5 and FM1@DTSEC6.

On Linux the interfaces are renamed as:

eth2 -> fm1-gb2
eth3 -> fm1-gb3
eth4 -> fm1-gb4
eth5 -> fm1-gb5

RCW and Ethernet interfaces for B4420QDS

Serdes protocosl tested: * 0x18, 0x9e (serdes1, serdes2)

Under U-Boot these network interfaces are recognized as:

FM1@DTSEC3, FM1@DTSEC4 and  e1000#0.

On Linux the interfaces are renamed as:

eth2 -> fm1-gb2
eth3 -> fm1-gb3

NAND boot with 2 Stage boot loader

PBL initialise the internal SRAM and copy SPL(160KB) in SRAM. SPL further initialise DDR using SPD and environment variables and copy U-Boot(768 KB) from flash to DDR. Finally SPL transer control to U-Boot for futher booting.

SPL has following features:
  • Executes within 256K
  • No relocation required

Run time view of SPL framework during boot:

Area | Address
Secure boot | 0xFFFC0000 (32KB) headers |
GD, BD | 0xFFFC8000 (4KB)
ENV | 0xFFFC9000 (8KB)
HEAP | 0xFFFCB000 (30KB)
STACK | 0xFFFD8000 (22KB)
U-Boot SPL | 0xFFFD8000 (160KB)

NAND Flash memory Map on B4860 and B4420QDS

Start End Definition Size
0x000000 0x0FFFFF U-Boot 1MB
0x140000 0x15FFFF U-Boot env 128KB
0x1A0000 0x1BFFFF FMAN Ucode 128KB