Architech’s Hachiko/SDRAM documentation

Version:1.1.0A
Copyright:(C)2016 Avnet Silica company
Date:08/08/2014
_images/board.png

You can find the previous documentation: Here

Hachiko board is a deeply embedded board based on Renesas’s RZ/A1 processor, which has a huge internal random access memory, enough to run a Linux distribution directly without the help of memory external to the SoC. The distribution you can run from within the internal RAM must be custom tailored for the final application. If you want to have more flexibility, the board allows you to mount an external memory chip so you can extend the amount of system memory. From the point of view of the SDK, there are differences regarding Linux kernel configuration, cross-toolchain, how the Linux distribution has to be composed, etc., hence there are two different SDKs for the two different configurations and two different documentations.

Important

We will call Hachiko/SDRAM the configuration that employs external memory, while we will call Hachiko the configuration without it.

This documentation is about Hachiko/SDRAM.

Have you just received your Hachiko/SDRAM board? Then you sure want to read the Unboxing chapter first.

If you are a new user of the Yocto based SDK we suggest you to read the Quick start guide chapter, otherwise, if you want to have a better understanding of specific topics, just jump directly to the chapter that interests you the most.

Furthermore, we encourage you to read the official Yocto Project documentation.

Notations

Throughout this guide, there are commands, file system paths, etc., that can either refer to the machine (real or virtual) you use to run the SDK or to the board.

Host

This box will be used to refer to the machine running the SDK

Board

This box will be used to refer to Hachiko/SDRAM board

However, the previous notations can make you struggle with long lines. In such a case, the following notation is used.

  Host    select
This Box will be used where long lines need to be displayed, as well as with system paths, commands, configuration files, etc.
All related to the host.
It will be used to display code example as well.
  Board    select
The same facility will be used, when needed, for the board.

If you click on select on the top right corner of these two last boxes, you will get the text inside the box selected. We have to warn you that your browser might select the line numbers as well, so, the first time you use such a feature, you are invited to check it.

Sometimes, when referring to file system paths, the path starts with /path/to. In such a case, the documentation is NOT referring to a physical file system path, it just means you need to read the path, understand what it means, and understand what is the proper path on your system. For example, when referring to the device file associated to your USB flash memory you could read something like this in the documentation:

  Host    select
/path/to/your/USB/device

Since things are different from one machine to another, you need to understand its meaning and corresponding value for your machine, like for example:

  Host    select
/dev/sdb

When referring to a specific partition of a device, you could read something like this in the documentation:

  Host    select
/path/to/your/USB/device/partition

Even in this case, the things are different from one machine to another, like for example:

we are referring to the device /dev/sdb and in the specific to the partition 1. To know more details please refer to device files section of the appendix.