Subject: Re: common com(4) framework
To: Garrett D'Amore <garrett_damore@tadpole.com>
From: Jesse Off <joff@embeddedARM.com>
List: port-arm
Date: 06/15/2006 14:04:33
> I have not seen your chip, but there's a good chance that the
> programming model loosely follows the 16550 interface.  Certainly, there
> is probably no real reason not to implement to the same API that I can
> think of, but you'll have to check for yourself.
>
> FWIW, this driver supports many workalikes that have differences on
> embedded boards, etc.
>
> Heck, if you send me docs for your part, I can quickly tell you (and
> maybe even write a quick driver for it if it works) whether this part is
> likely to be usable with com(4) or not.
>

The UART is somewhat of a "Technologic Systems special" UART I designed in 
Verilog and hand-tuned for FPGA synthesis with the primary purpose of being 
extremely small.   A 16550 implemented in an FPGA takes around 1500-2000 
LUTs, this UART takes 70 LUTs (or 105 with a 5 byte FIFO), parity is 
calculated with software, and only supports 8 distinct baud rates.  We 
include 10 of these soft-uarts on the TS-7300 board.  I don't have much docs 
besides whats in the comments of my Verilog source-- the core is very simple 
and only has 2 registers:

// address 0: STAT register
//   bit 0 - TBRE, Transmit buffer empty (RO)
//   bit 1 - DR, Receive data ready (RO)
//   bit 2 - OERR, Overflow error (RO)
//   bit 3 - CTS, UART clear-to-send (RO)
//   bit 4 - RTS, UART request-to-send (RW)
//   bit 7:5 - MODE, baud rate (RW)
//      0 - 115200 8N1
//      1 - 57600 8N1
//      2 - 38400 8N1
//      3 - 19200 8N1
//      4 - 9600 8N1
//      5 - 4800 8N1
//      6 - 2400 8N1
//      7 - UART off, IRQ disabled
//   bit 8 - NINEBIT enable (9N1) (RW)
//   bit 9:15 - reserved
// read address 1: RXDAT register (RX data register)
// write address 1: TXDAT register (TX data register)
//
// * When NINEBIT mode is disabled, disregard bit 8 when
//   reading RXDAT as its value will be UNDEFINED
//
// * Upper 7 bits of RXDAT and TXDAT are reserved and
//   should be discarded from reads as their value will
//   be UNDEFINED
//
// * If connected to 8-bit data bus 9N1 serial support is not
//   supported.
//
// * IRQ is asserted when DR bit of STATUS reg
//   asserted
//
// * IRQ is also triggered on transmitter busy to non-busy
//    transition.  Cleared on register read.

The UART is capable of 9-bit arbitrary data which is something only the 
16950 can do easily.   Our customers need this for some strange applications 
in vending machines and certain types of RS485 serial networks.  The 9-bit 
mode is used for 8E1 or 8O1 with the parity bit computed in the driver via 
lookup table.  We've had to come up with a hybrid driver in Linux that can 
go into a "special mode" that passes 16-bits at a time to/from the /dev 
device node to accomodate the 9-bit raw data mode but I don't anticipate 
this being absolutely necessary for our NetBSD customers.

// Jesse Off