topic Re: ethernet working on core m4 in i.MX Processors

ethernet working on core m4

panezion — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 18:18:32 GMT

hi, I'm pretty new in embedded world. I've got a evk board on my hand with a cpu of type "imx8m". I've checked out all the files in mcuexpresso version 2.7 and found no files named like "fsl_fec" "fsl_enet" or any examples implement phy in cm4 world.

my question is "is it possible for phy working on m4 core" if so, is there any brief tutorial I can follow

best regards

pan

Re: ethernet working on core m4

Bio_TICFSL — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 16:29:34 GMT

Hello xiang,

You can not use the same Ethernet interface with different OSes.
You need to drive Ethernet from one OS and access it from another using something like messaging unit.
However it is not a good idea. This way you loose speed and realtime.

If you mean i.MX8 processor not i.MX8M please note that it has 2 Ethernet interfaces.

So yo can use one with RTOS runing on M4 core and another with Linux runing on A ones.

Regards

Re: ethernet working on core m4

panezion — Thu, 16 Jan 2020 16:39:42 GMT

thank you.

sorry for not making it clear.

I'm not going to share the phy with m4 core. I just want it work on m4 but not on CortexA53 core.

can I just delete it from the device tree and use it on m4 core side?

beat regards

pan

Re: ethernet working on core m4

kunalkotecha1 — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 05:37:04 GMT

Hi panezion@gmail.com,

Referring to the R.M, we can see that most peripherals are shared among both the core A7 and M4. RDC will be the one managing the access of peripherals between both the cores.

Yes, it is possible to use Ethernet on M4 core.However, the current SDK does not have support for Ethernet driver.

Regards,

Kunal

Re: ethernet working on core m4

panezion — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 07:58:17 GMT

Thank you so much for replying. It's helpful

Re: ethernet working on core m4

panezion — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 20:31:55 GMT

I’ve finished the development of Ethernet driver and build an ETHERCAT stack over it. It just worked well. Thank you again for your help

Re: ethernet working on core m4

kunalkotecha1 — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 12:07:50 GMT

Hi panezion@gmail.com,

Glad you have developed the ethernet driver. Thanks for letting us know. Have you taken the ethernet driver reference from the linux kernel source and ported the same on FreeRTOS? Can you please add an information or some kind of note here, that could be helpful to anyone going through this kind of use case?

Regards,

Kunal

Re: ethernet working on core m4

panezion — Mon, 17 Feb 2020 13:02:13 GMT

Hi,

I ran into a other problem. after I build the EtherCAT stack on M4 core and the motion control app on Linux side and try to combine these two together. It seems thad I can't boot these two together. The problem seems caused by two core touches the ENET while booting together. So I tried to use the RDC(kRDC_Periph_ENET1) to lock the ENET and remove the device tree node which matches "*fec*" or "*enet*" and still the linux side touches the enet register and caused ----"Synchronous Abort" handler, esr 0x96000210"---- all the time.

Could you give me some hint about it ?

Thank you so much

Re: ethernet working on core m4

stefanogurrieri — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 14:32:36 GMT

Hello,

could you please add a bit of information or some kind of note here, that could be helpful to anyone going through this kind of use case?

We need the same thing, ethercat over ethernet on M4 core. Not necessary on A53.

Thanks in advance!

Stefano