STPCI2 STMicroelectronics, STPCI2 Datasheet - Page 77

• Manufacturer Part Number: STPCI2
• Description: STPC ATLAS DATASHEET - X86 CORE PC COMPATIBLE SYS
• Manufacturer: STMicroelectronics

6.2. STPC CONFIGURATION
The STPC is a very flexible product thanks to
decoupled clock domains and to strap options
enabling a user-optimized configuration.
As some trade off are often necessary, it is
important to do an analysis of the application
needs prior to design a system based on this
product. The applicative constraints are usually
the following:
Some other elements can help to tune the choice:
On the STPC side, the configurable parameters
are the following:
6.2.1. LOCAL BUS / ISA BUS
The selection between the ISA bus and the Local
Bus is relatively simple. The first one is a standard
bus but slow. The Local Bus is fast and
programmable but doesn't support any DMA nor
external master mechanisms. The
below summarize the selection:
Before implementing a function requiring DMA
capability on the ISA bus, it is recommended to
check if it exists on PCI, or if it can be
implemented differently, in order to use the local
bus mode.
6.2.2. CLOCK CONFIGURATION
The CPU clock and the memory clock are
independent unless the "synchronous mode"
strap option is set (see the STRAP OPTIONS
chapter). The potential clock configurations are
then relatively limited as listed in
Legacy I/O device (Floppy, ...), Super I/O
DMA capability (Soundblaster)
Flash, SRAM, basic I/O device
Fast boot
Boot flash of 4MB or more
Programmable Chip Select
- CPU performance
- graphics / video performances
- power consumption
- PCI bandwidth
- booting time
- EMC
- Code size of CPU Consuming tasks
- Data size and location
- synchronous / asynchronous mode
- HCLK speed
- MCLK speed
- Local Bus / ISA bus
Table 6-1. Bus mode selection
Need
Table
Table 6-1
6-2.
Selection
Local Bus
Local Bus
Local Bus
Local Bus
ISA Bus
Issue 1.0 - July 24, 2002
ISA Bus
The
compared to the asynchronous mode is a lower
latency when accessing SDRAM from the CPU or
the PCI (saves 4 MCLK cycles for the first access
of the burst). For the same CPU to Memory
transfer performance, MCLK has to be roughly
higher by 20MHz between SYNC and ASYNC
modes to get the same system performance level
(example: 66MHz SYNC = 86MHz ASYNC) .
In all cases, use SDRAM with CAS Latency
equals to 2 (CL2) for the best performances.
The advantage of the asynchronous mode is the
capability to reprogram the MCLK speed on the
fly. This could help for applications where power
consumption must be optimized.
The last, and more complex, information to
consider is the behaviour of the software. In case
high CPU or FPU computation is needed, it is
sometime better to be in DX2-133/MCLK=66
synchronous
asynchronous mode. This depends on the locality
of the number crunching code and the amount of
data manipulated.
The
right column correspond to the configuration
number as described in
Obviously, the values for HCLK or MCLK can be
reduced compared to
need to push the device at its limits, or when
avoiding to use specific frequency ranges (FM
radio band for example).
6.3. ARCHITECTURE RECOMMENDATIONS
This
implementations for the STPC interfaces. For
more
Schematics from the STPC web site.
Need CPU power
Critical code fits into L1 cache
Need CPU power
Code or data does not fit into L1 cache
Need high PCI bandwitdh
Need flexible SDRAM speed
C
1
2
Table 6-3
Asynchronous
Synchronous
advantage
Table 6-3. Clock mode selection
section
details,
Mode
Table 6-2. Main STPC modes
mode
below gives some examples. The
Constraints
describes
of the
download
HCLK
Table 6-2
MHz
66
66
than
DESIGN GUIDELINES
Table
synchronous
CPU clock
clock ratio
DX2-133/MCLK=90
6-2:
133 (x2)
133 (x2)
the
in case there is no
the
recommend
Reference
MCLK
MHz
77/111
mode
66
90
C
1
3
3
2