Overview -- eCos Support for the M68K Family of Processors
Description
The original Motorola 68000 processor was released in 1979, and
featured the following:
Eight general purpose 32-bit data registers, %D0 to %D7. Seven 32-bit
address registers %A0 to %A6, with %A7 dedicated as the stack pointer.
A 16-bit status register.
A linear address space, limited to 24-bits because the chip package
only had 24 address pins. Hence the processor could address 16
megabytes of memory.
No separate address space for I/O operations. Instead devices are
accessed just like memory via the main address and data buses.
16-bit external data bus, even though the data registers were 32 bits
wide.
A CISC variable-length instruction set with no less than 14 different
addressing modes (although of course the terms RISC and CISC were not
yet in common use).
Separate supervisor and user modes. The processor actually has two
distinct stack pointer registers %A7, and the mode determines which one
gets used.
An interrupt subsystem with support for vectored and prioritized
interrupts.
The 68000 processor was used in several microcomputers of its time,
including the original Apple Macintosh, the Commodore Amiga, and the
Atari ST. Over the years numerous variants have been developed. The
core instruction set has remained essentially unchanged. Some of the
variants have additional instructions. The development of MMUs led to
changes in exception handling. In more recent variants, notably the
Freescale ColdFire family, some infrequently used instructions and
addressing modes have been removed.
The 68008 reduced the widths of the external data and address buses to
8 bits and 20 bits respectively, giving the processor slow access to
only one megabyte.
The 68010 (1982) added virtual memory support.
In the 68020 (1984) both the address and data buses were made 32-bits wide. A
256-byte instruction cache was added, as were some new instructions
and addressing modes.
The 68030 (1987) included an on-chip mmu and a 256-byte data cache.
The 68040 (1991) added hardware floating point (previous processors relied on
an external coprocessor or on software emulation). It also had larger
caches and an improved mmu.
The 68060 (1994) involved an internally very different superscalar
implementation of the architecture, but few changes at the interface
level. It also contained support for power management.
There have been numerous 683xx variants for embedded use, with
on-chip peripherals like UARTs and timers. The cpu core of these
variants is also known as cpu32.
The MCFxxxx ColdFire series (1995) resembles a stripped-down 68060,
with some instructions and addressing modes removed to allow for a
much smaller and more efficient implementation. Various hardware units
such as the and FPU and MMU have become optional.
eCos only provides support for some of these variants, although it
should be possible to add support for additional variants with few or
no changes to the architectural HAL package.
The architectural HAL provides support for those features which are
common to all members of the 68000 and ColdFire families, and for
certain features which are present on some but not all members. A
typical eCos configuration will also contain: a variant HAL package
with support code for a family of processors, for example MCFxxxx;
possibly a processor HAL package with support for one specific
processor, for example the MCF5272; and a platform HAL
which contains the code needed for a specific hardware platform such
as the m5272c3.
