--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Library: Atomthreads Author: Kelvin Lawson Website: http://atomthreads.com License: BSD Revised --------------------------------------------------------------------------- STM8 PORT - IAR COMPILER This folder contains a port of the Atomthreads real time kernel for the STM8 processor architecture. These instructions cover usage of Atomthreads with the IAR Embedded Workbench compiler (EWSTM8). All of the cross-platform kernel code is contained in the top-level 'kernel' folder, while ports to specific CPU architectures are contained in the 'ports' folder tree. A port to a CPU architecture can comprise just one or two modules which provide the architecture-specific functionality, such as the context-switch routine which saves and restores processor registers on a thread switch. In this case, the kernel port is split into two files: * atomport.c: Those functions which can be written in C * atomport-asm-iar.s: The main register save/restore assembler routines Each Atomthreads port requires also a header file which describes various architecture-specific details such as appropriate types for 8-bit, 16-bit etc variables, the port's system tick frequency, and macros for performing interrupt lockouts / critical sections: * atomport.h: Port-specific header required by the kernel for each port A few additional source files are also included here: * tests-main.c: Main application file (used for launching automated tests) * uart.c: UART wrapper to allow use of stdio/printf() * stm8s-periphs/*.*: Peripheral drivers as delivered by ST (no changes to distributed code). Atomthreads includes a suite of automated tests which prove the key OS functionality, and can be used with any architecture ports. This port provides an easy mechanism for building, downloading and running the test suite to prove the OS on your target. The port was carried out and tested on an STM8S105C6 running within an STM8S-Discovery board, and supports the Cosmic, Raisonance and IAR compiler tools. It is possible to use it with other processors in the STM8 range, as well as other hardware platforms and compilers, with minimal changes. Platform and compiler specific code has been kept to an absolute minimum. This README covers usage of Atomthreads with the IAR compiler. Instructions for users of the other compilers are available in README-COSMIC and README-RAISONANCE. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PREREQUISITES The port works out-of-the-box with the IAR compiler tools for building. Applications are generated in ELF format and can be programmed and debugged using the IAR Embedded Workbench GUI or the free STVP (visual programmer tool). At this time there does not appear to be a command-line programmer application suitable for use with STM8. IAR Embedded Workbench for STM8 is a Windows-only application. For users of other operating systems the IAR tools may work in environments like Wine, but the USB programming tools are less likely to be supported. Embedded Workbench for STM8 can, however, be run successfully within a VM such as VirtualBox, including USB download and debug. The core software prerequisites are therefore: * IAR Embedded Workbench STM8 Use with alternative compiler tools may require some modification, but you can easily replace the EWSTM8 IDE by your own favourite programmer if required (e.g. STVP). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUILDING THE SOURCE You may build Atomthreads using whichever build environment you desire. For your convenience we provide both a ready-rolled Makefile-based build system and an Embedded Workbench (EWSTM8) project. The EWSTM8 project permits easy building, programming and debugging, but does not easily support building a wide range of application builds within the same project, which is useful for building the numerous automated tests. For the automated tests you may find it easier to use the Makefile which automatically builds all automated tests. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUILD VIA EWSTM8 PROJECT For building applications using the EWSTM8 IDE you can use the sample project file atomthreads-sample-iar.ewp. This builds a sample full application which runs the "sem1" automated test. Applications can be downloaded directly to the target hardware (e.g. STM8S-Discovery) and run via the integrated debugger. You can start the application running, and confirm that the LED flashes once per second (if running on an STM8S-Discovery) to ensure that the test has passed. This is also a good starting point for building your own applications: simply modify the file tests-main.c which starts the test application. You can run any of the other automated tests by replacing the file sem1.c within the project by another of the tests within the atomthreads tests folder. This is rather painful using a GUI interface due to the large number of test files, and you may prefer to use the Makefile-based system instead which builds all automated tests in one command. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUILD VIA MAKEFILE A Makefile is also provided for building the kernel, port and automated tests. This is particularly useful for building the automated tests because many different independent applications need to be built which is not easily achieved within the EWSTM8 environment. For a Windows system you can obtain a Make application suitable for use with the IAR compiler from: * http://www.cosmic-software.com/comp_utils/GNU_Make.zip Assuming you install the above into C:\Program Files\GNU_MAKE, you should set up your environment variables as follows: * set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\GNU_MAKE;C:\Program Files\IAR Systems\Embedded Workbench 6.0\stm8\bin * set MAKE_MODE=DOS The full build is carried out using simply: * make -f iar.mak All objects are built into the 'build-iar' folder under ports/stm8. The build process builds separate target applications for each automated test, and appropriate .elf or .s19 files can be found in the build folder ready for downloading to and running on the target. Because of the limited resources on the STM8, and the large amount of automated tests, each test is built and run as a separate application. All built objects etc can be cleaned using: * make -f iar.mak clean The Atomthreads sources are documented using Doxygen markup. You can build both the kernel and STM8 port documentation from this folder using: * make -f iar.mak doxygen --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROGRAMMING MAKEFILE-BUILT APPLICATIONS TO THE TARGET DEVICE When developing within EWSTM8, programs can be downloaded directly to the target. If, however, you are building applications separately using a Makefile or similar, then you are not able to program the application using EWSTM8. None of the tools delivered by ST appear to be designed to cater for those who build applications externally, but it is possible using STVP. The following development workflow can be used (note that these settings apply to the STM8S-Discovery): * Build app using Makefile. * Open STVP and configure to use Swim ST-Link for CPU STM8105C6. * Open application .s19 file and program using "Program All Tabs". Unfortunately STVP does not have a command to reset and start the CPU running, but it can be forced into doing so by reconfiguring the programmer: * Select "Configure ST Visual Programmer" from the Configure menu. Your application should now be programmed and running. If you wish to program and run another application then you can open and program it in STVP, then use the Configure menu again to reset the device and start it running. Other programming tools may exist but are not apparent in the toolset delivered for use the STM8S Discovery platform. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- STM8S-DISCOVERY SPECIFICS There are very minimal board-specific aspects to the STM8 port so it is trivial to run Atomthreads on other STM8 platforms. The test applications make use of a LED to indicate test pass/fail status. This is currently configured to use a bit in GPIOD, which on the Discovery board maps to the board's only LED. You may change the port and register bit in tests-main.c to utilise a different pin on other hardware platforms. You may also completely omit the LED flashing in the test application if you prefer to use the UART for monitoring test status. The test applications also make use of the UART to print out pass/fail indications and other information. For this you should connect a serial cable to the Discovery board via the external pin connectors. Use of a UART is not required if you prefer to use the LED or some other method of notifying test pass/fail status. To connect a serial cable to the Discovery you will need to connect to the following pins on the external connectors: Vcc: CN2 pin 8 GND: CN2 pin 7 UART RX: CN4 pin 11 (connect to TX at the PC end) UART TX: CN4 pin 10 (connect to RX at the PC end) Note that the board uses TTL levels so you may need to use a level converter. External level converters may need to be powered using a Vdd of 5v, which can be achieved by positioning JP1 on the Discovery. The STM8 device on the Discovery only offers UART2. If you are using a different device or wish to use an alternative UART then you must change the stm8s_conf.h file. If you are using a CPU other than the STM8S105C6 you should change the PART macro from "STM8S105" to your target CPU. This can be changed in the iar.mak Makefile. If you are using the EWSTM8 project it should be changed in the project C/C++ Compiler Preprocessor settings for both Debug and Release builds, and you must also change the target device in the project's "General Options". You may also wish to enable any CPU peripherals which you wish to use in the stm8s_conf.h file. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RUNNING THE AUTOMATED TESTS Atomthreads contains a set of generic kernel tests which can be run on any port to prove that all core functionality is working on your target. The full set of tests can be found in the top-level 'tests' folder. The Makefile builds each of these tests as independent applications in the 'build' folder. Run them individually using the STVP process described above. For example to run the 'kern1.c' test use STVP to program and run it. You may also build the tests using the EWSTM8 project, but to run each different test you must manually remove the previous test module (e.g. kern1.c) and replace it with one of other tests, which can be quite time consuming compared to building all tests in one command via the Makefile. To view the test results, watch the LED on the STM8S-Discovery. This will flash once per second if the test passed, and once every 1/8 second if the test failed. If you wish to use the UART, connect a serial debug cable to your target platform (defaults to 9600bps 8N1). On starting, the test applications print out "Go" on the UART. Once the test is complete they will print out "Pass" or "Fail", along with other information if the test failed. Most of the tests complete within a few seconds, but some (particularly the stress tests) can take several seconds, so be patient. The full suite of tests endeavours to exercise as much of the kernel code as possible, and can be used for quick confirmation of core OS functionality if you ever need to make a change to the kernel or port. The test application main() is contained in tests-main.c. This initialises the OS, creates a main thread, and calls out to the test modules. It also initialises the UART driver for use by stdout. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WRITING APPLICATIONS The easiest way to start a new application which utilises the Atomthreads scheduler is to base your main application startup on tests-main.c. This initialises the OS, sets up a UART and calls out to the test module entry functions. You can generally simply replace the call to the test modules by a call to your own application startup code. Projects developed within EWSTM8 can be started using the sample project atomthreads-sample-iar.ewp. If you wish to create your own EWSTM8 project from scratch, then you should ensure you change the project settings for both Debug and Release builds as follows: * General Options -> Target -> Device: CPU part (e.g. "STM8S105C6") * C/C++ Compiler -> Diagnostics: Suppress "Pa050" * C/C++ Compiler -> Preprocessor -> Defined Symbols: CPU part (e.g. "STM8S105") Thread stack-checking if required ("ATOM_STACK_CHECKING") For example "STM8S105, ATOM_STACK_CHECKING" * Assembler -> Diagnostics: Suppress "Pa050" * Repeat above for Debug and Release projects (you may want to disable ATOM_STACK_CHECKING for Release builds). Other options you may wish to change: * Tools -> Options -> Editor -> EOL Characters: "Preserve". This preserves the line endings, bearing in mind that the Atomthreads kernels works with many host operating system toolchains. * Options -> Debugger -> "ST Link" (e.g. for STM8S Discovery) Add the .C and .S modules from the following folders: * kernel * ports/stm8 * ports/stm8s-periphs Set include paths as appropriate. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- RAM FOOTPRINT & STACK USAGE The Atomthreads kernel is written in well-structured pure C which is highly portable and not targeted at any particular compiler or CPU architecture. For this reason it is not highly optimised for the STM8 architecture, and by its nature will likely have a higher text and data footprint than an RTOS targeted at the STM8 architecture only. The emphasis here is on C-based portable, readable and maintainable code which can run on any CPU architecture, from the 8-bitters up. A good rule of thumb when using Atomthreads on the STM8 architecture is that a minimum of 1KB RAM is required in order to support an application with 4 or 5 threads and the idle thread. If a minimum of approximately 128 bytes per thread stack is acceptable then you will benefit from the easy-to-read, portable implementation of an RTOS herein. The major consumer of RAM when using Atomthreads is your thread stacks. Functionality that is shared between several kernel modules is farmed out to separate functions, resulting in readable and maintainable code but with some associated stack cost of calling out to subroutines. Further, each thread stack is used for saving its own registers on a context switch, and there is no separate interrupt stack which means that each thread stack has to be able to cope with the maximum stack usage of the kernel (and application) interrupt handlers. Clearly the stack requirement for each thread depends on what your application code does, and what memory model is used etc, but generally you should find that 128 bytes is enough to allow for the thread to be switched out (and thus save its registers) while deep within a kernel or application call stack, and similarly enough to provide stack for interrupt handlers interrupting while the thread is deep within a kernel or application call stack. You will need to increase this depending on what level of stack the application code in question requires. At this time the maximum stack consumed by the test threads within the automated test modules is 85 bytes of stack, and the main test thread has been seen to consume 193 bytes of stack. At this time the queue9 test is the largest consumer of test thread stack (85 bytes) and the sem8 test consumes the largest main thread stack (193 bytes). If your applications have large amounts of local data or call several subroutines then you may find that you need larger than 128 bytes. You may monitor the stack usage of your application threads during runtime by defining the macro ATOM_STACK_CHECKING and calling atomThreadStackCheck(). This macro is defined by default in the EWSTM8 Debug project so that the automated test modules can check for stack overflows, but you may wish to undefine this in your application when you are happy that the stack usage is acceptable. Enabling ATOM_STACK_CHECKING will increase the size of your threads' TCBs slightly, and will incur a minor CPU cycles overhead whenever threads are created due to prefilling the thread stack with a known value. With careful consideration and few threads it would be possible to use a platform with 512 bytes RAM, but not all of the automated test suite would run on such a platform (some of the test modules use 6 threads: a main thread together with 4 test threads and the idle thread). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTERRUPT HANDLING Interrupt handlers use the stack of the thread which was running when the interrupt occurred. If no thread rescheduling occurs during the ISR then on exit from the ISR any data stacked by the ISR on the thread's stack is popped off the stack and execution of the thread resumes. If a reschedule during the ISR causes a context switch to a new thread, then the ISR's data will remain on the thread's stack until the thread is scheduled back in. Interrupt priorities (via the ITC_SPRx registers) are left in their default power-on state, which disables interrupt nesting. Kernel changes may be required to support interrupt nesting. Note that the STM8 programming manual currently describes the following feature: "Fast interrupt handling through alternate register files (up to 4 contexts) with standard stack compatible mode (for real time OS kernels)" This feature was implemented by ST in the core but has to date never been included in any STM8 products. If it is included in future products then you will need to put the device in the stack compatible mode described. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- WRITING NEW INTERRUPT HANDLERS All interrupt handlers which will call out to the OS kernel and potentially cause a thread switch must call atomIntEnter() and atomIntExit(). An example of this can be seen in the timer tick ISR in atomport.c. You may also implement fast interrupt handlers in the system which do not call atomIntEnter()/atomIntExit(), however these ISRs cannot perform OS functions such as posting semaphores or effecting a thread switch. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- IAR COMPILER VIRTUAL REGISTERS The STM8 has only very few CPU registers, so the IAR compiler augments them with sixteen "virtual" registers, which are simply locations in fast memory. These registers are called ?b0 to ?b15. The Atomthreads context switch for IAR/STM8 takes advantage of the fact that all CPU and most virtual registers are automatically saved on the stack by the compiler when calling out to C functions (and even then only if necessary). Only the virtual registers ?b8 to ?b15 are expected to be preserved by called functions, so these are the only registers that callers to the context switch routine will not automatically save if necessary. For cooperative context switches (where a thread calls an OS kernel function to schedule itself out), most registers will therefore already be saved on a thread's stack if necessary. Only ?b8 to ?b15 actually have to be saved in the context switch routine, making cooperative switches potentially very cheap if few registers must be preserved. For preemptive switches (where an ISR has interrupted a thread and wishes to switch to a new thread), the interrupt handler prologue automatically saves all CPU registers (actually done automatically by the CPU) and the virtual registers ?b0 to ?b7. Still only the registers ?b8 to ?b15 have to be saved by the context-switch routine, but in this case ?b0 to ?b7 and the CPU registers are always saved on the thread's stack by the ISR prologue. This is because the ISR has no knowledge of what registers the interrupted thread was using, so we cannot take advantage of the potential for saving fewer than the full set of registers that we achieve with cooperative switches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------