Microchip PIC64GX SoC Zephyr Support

This repository provides Microchip PIC64GX SoC support for the Zephyr RTOS project with:

• Sample Zephyr applications for Microchip's PIC64GX SoC
• Extended West Commands to generate and flash a payload to the eMMC

Prerequisites

This section describes the requirements needed before building and flashing a Zephyr application.

Supported Build Hosts

This document assumes you are running on a modern Linux system. The process documented here was tested using Ubuntu 20.04/18.04 LTS.

Install Zephyr SDK and Build System on Host PC

To build Zephyr applications on a host PC, please follow the installation instructions for the Zephyr SDK and build system found in the Zephyr OS Install Guide

Build Instructions

The following commands make a workspace and clone this repository into a directory called pic64gx-soc:

mkdir zephyr_workspace && cd zephyr_workspace
git clone https://github.com/pic64gx/pic64gx-zephyr-examples.git -b pic64gx pic64gx-soc

The next step initializes the workspace:

cd pic64gx-soc
west init -l

Now using Zephyr's build-system, West, pull in Zephyr's code base:

cd ../
west update
west zephyr-export
source zephyr/zephyr-env.sh

To build a Zephyr application, use the command:

west build -p -b pic64gx_curiosity_kit <application>

Or to build a Zephyr application and generate an Eclipse CDT-4 based project which can be imported into Microchip's SoftConsole IDE:

west build -p -b pic64gx_curiosity_kit <application> -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles"

Where pic64gx_curiosity_kit is the supported board for PIC64GX Curiosity Kit, <application> is the Zephyr OS application.

The table below lists the applications available for PIC64GX Curiosity Kit that demonstrate various functionallity:

application
apps/amp_exemple
apps/blinky
apps/button

Using West Commands for PIC64GX SoC

Python Requirements

This repository comes with scripts that extend Zephyr's build system, West. The scripts are written in python and can be found in the scripts/ directory. The scripts have python packages requirements which can be installed with pip:

pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt

Information on the West extensions for PIC64GX SoC can be seen by:

west help

The output should contain:

extension commands from project manifest (path: pic64gx-soc):
  generate-payload:     invoke the Hart Software Services (HSS) payload
                        generator to generate a payload suitable for
                        flashing to the boards eMMC
  flash-payload:        flash a payload onto the boards eMMC.

Fetching Blobs With West

Zephyr's build system West has a mechanism for fetching binaries and executables from source control. These are known as blobs. This repository is capable of fetching the Hart Software Services (HSS), Payload Generator executable. To do this:

west blobs fetch

This will retrieve the the Payload Generator Executable. Note, this is required to use the West extension generate-payload

Generating a payload

The generate-payload West command utilizes the Hart Software Services Payload Generator to generate a binary that is suitable to be flashed to a devices eMMC. More information on the HSS Payload Generator can be found here

To generate a payload, a compiled Zephyr application (ex: zephyr.elf) and a configuration file written in yaml are required. Example configuration files are provided in payload-configs/.

The instructions below demonstrates how to use generate-payload:

# from the zephyr workspace:
#
# build the smp example
west build -p -b pic64gx_curiosity_kit pic64gx-soc/apps/blinky

# generate a payload for an SMP, DDR, application
west generate-payload pic64gx-soc/payload-configs/single_hart_ddr.yaml output.bin

The instructions above generate a payload called output.bin

Additional Reading

Zephyr User Manual

Zephyr Project - Github