[En-Nut-Discussion] SAM9260-EK getting started

[steve]

Harald,
At 14:01 13/07/2008, you wrote:
>steve wrote:
> >
> >   If I program the webradio application into dataflash on my 9260-EK,
> >   (along with the Atmel bootloader) then it works.  Programming directly
> >   into SDRAM @ 0x20000000 it fails.  Clearly there's something in that
> >   bootloader that makes all the difference, does this make any sense?
>
>Indeed, there may be a missing initialization in the SAM-BA ROM or the
>Webradio, which is provided by the boot loader. Unfortunately I haven't
>had the time to test all this here. At least I do have the same board
>revision 1.0.

  I'd be very interested to know if you can reproduce my findings.

> >   I now have another problem - my LJG JPEG decompression application
> >   runs slightly _SLOWER_ on the 9260-EK (CPU clk 90.3MHz) than on my old
> >   SAM7X-EK (CPU clock at 48MHz).  I moved to ARM9 specifically to get
> >   more speed, does anyone have any idea why?
>
>I had a discussion with Atmel about similar experiences with the MP3
>fixed point software decoder used in the webradio. They later changed
>the SDRAM initialization (SAM-BA script and bootloader) and performance
>increased. It was still slower than expected, but significantly faster
>than the SAM7X. In case you are using an old SAM-BA Tool or boot loader...

  Very interesting...
  Could I ask you please to send me or point me to a copy of the
  bootloader binary that implements the faster setup.  I'm currently
  using a version dated 9-5-2007.

  Also I notice the CPU clock speed is only 90MHz and the processor
  is capable of 200MHz operation, is there a reason for this or could
  I increase it without causing other problems?
  Is the processor's cache being used properly, maybe there's some
  CPU configuration change that could improve cache performance?

  Thanks a lot.

Steve.