SYS/BIOS 6.31.03.25 Patch Release Notes

This release note is divided into the following sections:

Introduction, Documentation, What's New, Upgrading And Compatibility Information, Host Support, Dependencies, Device Support, Validation Information, Known Issues, Benchmarks, Versioning, Technical Support And Product Updates,

Introduction

A number of tools and libraries that were provided as an integrated part of DSP/BIOS 5.x releases must now be downloaded separately to obtain a functional solution. It is essential for even experienced DSP/BIOS users to refer to the Getting Started Guide and to the Upgrading and Compatibility Information section for further details.

Documentation

The following documentation is provided with this release:

• SYS/BIOS 6 Getting Started Guide
• SYS/BIOS 6 User's Guide
• SYS/BIOS 6 Microsoft HTML .chm help file
• SYS/BIOS APIs (cdoc)
• Migrating a DSP/BIOS 5 Application to SYS/BIOS 6
• All of this documentation is available via the CCSv4 Eclipse help system.   The APIs (cdoc) is indexed and searchable via Eclipse help.

• SYS/BIOS Manifest and License

Release notes from previous releases are also available in the release notes archive directory.

What's New

SYS/BIOS 6.31.03.25 Patch Release (this release).

• Defect fixes, see list below.
• C28 support for 2806x devices.

This release is based on SYS/BIOS 6.31.00. 
Notes on SYS/BIOS 6.31.00:

• Cortex-A8 support for TI816x, TI814x, and OMAP3530 devices.
• C66x support for the 6670, 6672, 6674 and 6678 devices.
• Memory-related enhancements:
• BIOS.heapSize – new configuration parameter to specify size of HeapMem heap that BIOS will create and bind as default heap manager via Memory.defaultHeapInstance.
• malloc/free – BIOS now provides malloc(), free(), calloc(), realloc(), and memalign() functions.  The BIOS versions of these functions use the default HeapMem for the memory heap.  
• SYS/BIOS User’s Guide -- Assorted updates to the Memory Chapter (Chapter 5).
• More assert checks -- Added more assert checks to the heaps in the ti.sysbios.heaps package.
• Example improvements – add bigtime.cpp C++ example, simplified configuration for other examples
• MemoryProtect module for C64x+, C674x and C66x.
• Exception Modules – improved output for the family-specific exception modules.
• ROV view improvements – added ROV views for family-specific Exception and Cache modules
• BIOS libraries are now compiled with –g –o2 for better performance.  The –o2 option will have some effect on stepping through BIOS code in an application debug build.
  
  

Upgrading and Compatibility Information

• Added an assert to GateMutex.   GateMutex_enter() calls BIOS_getThreadType() to validate the calling context.  GateMutex_enter() will raise an assert if called from Hwi or Swi context.   GateMutex internally calls Semaphore_pend/post to provide the mutex.  Semaphore_pend() cannot be called from Swi or Hwi context if the semaphore is not available.  Note that a GateMutex gate is registered with the TI compiler’s RTS library to make the RTS library reentrant.   Calling printf() and a few other RTS functions from Swi or Hwi context will yield this assert.   
• This assert check will catch bad code that could cause a rare crash.  While not recommended, this assert can be disabled by adding ‘GateMutex.common$.diags_ASSERT = Diags.ALWAYS_OFF;’ to your .cfg file.
• Text footprint on the C6x increased by 2K due to Exception.enablePrint default now being set to ‘true’ by default.  This enables better diagnostic output when an exception occurs.  You can set this config parameter to ‘false’ to save memory and get a shorter, less informative diagnostic string.
• MMU and Cache are now enabled by default for Arm9.
• Arm9 applications will have larger data/text footprint due to the 16kbyte MMU table and MMU initialization code. 
• Moved ti.sysbios.arm.Cache module to ti.sysbios.arm.arm9.Cache since this module is Arm9-specific.  .cfg scripts will have to be updated to use new name (‘ti.sysbios.family.arm.arm9.Cache’) and .c files will have to change to use ‘#include <ti/sysbios/arm/arm9/Cache.h>’.
• Use BIOS_exit() rather than System_exit() if called from ISR or Swi context to avoid Assert() in GateMutex module.   BIOS_exit() and System_exit() both flush the SysMin trace buffer using CIO.  The CIO library is protected by GateMutex.
  

DA830 ROM

• BIOS 6.30 and 6.31 cannot be used with the DA830 ROM.  BIOS 6.21 is the preferred version for DA830 ROM.

The 'ti.sdo.io' and 'ti.sdo.utils' packages are no longer provided with SYS/BIOS

• These packages are now provided in a separate "IPC" product.  Users of these packages simply need to add this other product directory to their package path (XDCPATH) to build their applications.

The ti.sysbios.ipc package and its modules have been deprecated

• The Semaphore, Event, and Mailbox modules were moved from the ti.sysbios.ipc package into the ti.sysbios.knl package. Please update your applications to use the ti.sysbios.knl package versions of the Semaphore, Event, and Mailbox modules. Using the ipc package versions of these modules will result in build warnings. In a subsequent release of BIOS, using any module within the ipc package will result in a build error.

   
The ti.sysbios.family.arm.m3.Exception module has been deprecated

• The ti.sysbios.family.arm.m3.Exception module functionality has been enhanced and merged into the ti.sysbios.family.arm.m3.Hwi module. Please update your applications to use the ti.sysbios.family.arm.m3.Hwi module to configure exception handling. By default, exceptions will be reported to CIO with an Error message. Details of the exception can be seen using Hwi module's "Exception" ROV view. At the expense of additonal code size, some of this detailed information can ALSO be routed to the CIO console by setting the Hwi.enableException configuration flag to true.

Placing of sections using MEM configs is no longer supported (ie MEM.TEXTSEG is unsupported)

• All of the legacy MEM memory segment placment functionality has been removed. Legacy BIOS users must use Program.sectMap to place memory sections.

The ti.sysbios.family.c64p.Cache.initSize configuration item is no longer supported

• The ti.sysbios.family.c64p.Cache module no longer supports setting the Cache sizes. These settings are now managed within a platform and can be configured using the platform wizard.

SYS/BIOS no longer contains all the tools and objects you will need

• The XDC tools now provide the SYS/BIOS configuration tools and Platform support. XDC also includes a minimal run-time environment that provides the LOG, System, Asserts, Error handling, Timestamp, and Memory Allocation APIs that will be used by SYS/BIOS applications.  Please refer to the Getting Started Guide on where to download the XDC tools and run-time.

• SYS/BIOS 6.x has different APIs compared to those in DSP/BIOS 5.x. Configuration scripts are also incompatible between the two releases.  To provide easy migration of DSP/BIOS 5.x applications, an API compatibility layer is provided along with a conversion tool that converts configuration scripts to work with XDC and SYS/BIOS 6.x.  The API compatibility layer provides 100% C source code compatibility with the exception of a few APIs that are no longer supported.  For more complete details of migrating DSP/BIOS 5.x applications and configuration scripts, please refer to Migrating a DSP/BIOS 5 Application to SYS/BIOS 6.

• As mentioned above, some APIs previously supported in DSP/BIOS 5.x releases will no longer be supported in this release or the compatibility layer.  Complete details are provided in the Migration document referenced above.

Host Support

• Supported Operating Systems
• Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista
• Linux [RH4], Ubuntu [10.1]

Dependencies

• Required Software
  • Code Composer Studio v4.2, Code Composer Studio v5.0 or later
  • Code Generation Tools
    • C28X version 5.2.3 or later
    • C6X version 7.0.2 or later
    • ARM version 4.6.1 or later
    • MSP430 version 3.3.0 or later
  • XDCtools 3.20.05.76 or later
  • IPC 1.22.00.19 or later
• Required Hardware
  • See Device Support Section below.

Device Support

Validation Information

Click here for the list of compilers used to build and validate this release (scroll down to Supported Targets section).

Known Issues

The following issues are known to affect this release:

Benchmarks

• Timing and Size Benchmarks
• The Timing Benchmarks for the MSP430 target have not been determined. The published numbers for MSP430 were inadvertantly duplicated from the M3 timing benchmarks.

Versioning

This product's version follows a version format, M.mm.pp.bb, where M is a single digit Major number, mm is 2 digit minor number, pp is a 2 digit patch number, and b is an unrestricted set of digits used as an incrementing build counter.

To support multiple side-by-side installations of the product, the product version is encoded in the top level directory (e.g. bios_6_30_00_00).

Subsequent releases of patch upgrades will be identified by the patch number, ex. SYS/BIOS 6.30.01.15 with directory bios_6_30_01_15. Typically, these patches only include critical bug fixes.

Please note that version numbers and compatibility keys are NOT the same. For an explanation of compatibility keys, please refer to the 'Upgrade and Compatibility Information' section.

Technical Support and Product Updates

• Please contact softwaresupport@ti.com for technical support.
• TI E2E Community

Last updated: January 20, 2011 Build Ver: 6.31.03.25 Rev: g25