Re: AMCC PowerPC

[Douglas Wade Needham <cinnion%ka8zrt.com@localhost>]

Greetings,

My ignorance with AMCC may be showing here... what is the difference
between their 405* chips and the IBM 405* versions??  Also, are folks
hunting for the docs for the 405?  A few years ago, I think I had
electronic copies of the 405 docs but no need or HW, so I filed them
away someplace on CD or 4mm DAT, and have not yet gone hunting for
them.  However, I think I saw them someplace on the IBM web sites a
few months ago.  Unfortunately, I was more interested in the 750
family at the time, and never bookmarked the page where I did find
them.  The bookmarks I did store were:

    http://www-03.ibm.com/technology/power/about.html
    http://www-03.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/
    http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/
    http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-ppc/
    http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-powarch/#IDAY1QLB
    http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/productfamilies/PowerPC

Oh, a quick search for 'PPC405' found this one, which I think is
identical to what I had...

    
http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~tlan/dreambox/IBM_PPC405-Embedded_Processor_Core-UsersManual.pdf#search='PPC405'

Having a client who has products based on the PPC 405 and 750, I am
definitely in expanding into systems which run on these processors.
Unfortunately, their systems are very expensive, and so I am limited
to working remotely on systems in their lab.  However, I have been
looking for an inexpensive implementation such as the Walnut EVB, with
no success.  Your mention of being able to get a board makes me want
to know more.

Later,

- Doug

Quoting Jachym Holecek (freza%liberouter.org@localhost):
> Hi,
> 
> > > could someone provide a pointer to datasheets for AMCC/IBM 405* series of
> > > chips? AMCC's docs are rather incomplete, searching through IBM's site
> > > wasn't too helpful either. I might get an AMCC 405GP based board in a few
> > > months or so, having it run NetBSD would be nice.
> > 
> > The original IBM 405GP user manual was 1200+ pages and in my opinion was
> > a very good document.  It looks like you have to create an web account
> > with AMCC to get access to the user manual now, but I certainly wouldn't
> > call it "rather incomplete".
> 
> Yeah, I've got the account. For the 405 series, it doesn't give you
> any new docs. AMCC's ~50 page manual vs. IBM ~1200 is at least "not
> exhaustive" I'd say.
> 
> Meanwhile, I also found that Xilinx has a good "PowerPC Processor
> reference guide" on their web site in the Virtex-II Pro [*] section.
> 
> > At least the on-chip peripherals (uarts, ethernet) should Just Work, and
> > a port to the board to tie up any loose ends shouldn't be hard at all.
> 
> That's good news.
> 
> > Which board out of curiosity?
> 
> I think it's not even manufactured yet. I'll let you know when/if I have
> it home.
> 
>       Regards,
>               -- Jachym Holecek
> 
> [*] This FPGA chip comes with embedded ibm405 core ("hard" one as opposed
>     to "soft" cores like Xilinx MicroBlaze or Altera's NIOS).

-- 
Douglas Wade Needham - KA8ZRT        UN*X Consultant & UW/BSD kernel programmer
Email:  cinnion @ ka8zrt . com       http://cinnion.ka8zrt.com
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own.  Since I don't want them, why
            should my employer, or anybody else for that matter!