COURSE DESCRIPTION

The VxWorks® Board Support Packages and Device Drivers course provides engineers with a fast, cost-effective way to acquire the knowledge necessary to port VxWorks to customer hardware.

After this course, participants will be able to perform the following:

• Explain the architecture of the VxWorks board support package (BSP)
• Create a flattened device tree file
• Boot VxWorks with U-Boot boot loader
• Explain the kernel initialization sequence and its routines
• Create and make add-on VxWorks kernel components available in the kernel configuration editor
• Implement a VxWorks I/O system driver and access I/O devices from both user and kernel space
• Explain the VxBus general architecture and describe how VxBus device drivers are managed and integrated
• Explain the roles of ttyDrv, tyLib, and implement and integrate a serial driver
• Implement and integrate a timer driver
• Implement PCI Controller Driver Routines
• Initialize, configure, and integrate END drivers

Hands-on exercises are included, using the Wind River Simics® virtual target.

PRODUCTS SUPPORTED

• VxWorks 22.09
• Wind River Workbench 4

COURSE FORMAT

• This three-day expert-led course consists of lectures and lab sessions.
• Attendees use VxWorks, Workbench 4, and Simics to gain experience with the topics presented.
• Participants receive individual guidance from an expert engineer who has extensive experience with Wind River technologies.

AUDIENCE

• Developers planning to write a BSP for a new board on a supported architecture
• Device driver developers
• Application programmers interested in learning what occurs at the hardware level of a VxWorks image
• Senior engineers who will decide on a final production image of their product

PREREQUISITE SKILLS

• C programming, including experience with structures, pointers, pointers to structures, typedefs, macros, and bitwise operators
• Functional knowledge of Linux or Windows host operating system.
• Experience using the Workbench debugger to debug target code

PREREQUISITE COURSES

• Real-Time Programming for Embedded Systems
• VxWorks and Workbench Essentials

RELATED COURSES

• VxWorks 6.9 to VxWorks 7 Migration

SYLLABUS

Day 1

Introduction to VxWorks BSPs

• BSP overview
• BSP high level architecture
• LAB: Getting Started with VxWorks BSPs and Device Drivers

Flattened Device Tree

• Flattened device tree overview
• Flattened device tree syntax
• Flattened device tree initialization
• Device discovery
• LAB: Porting a BSP to Support a Board Variant

Boot Loaders for VxWorks

• VxWorks Boot Loaders Overview
• U-Boot for PowerPC, ARM and RISC-V
• Boot Loaders for Intel
• VxWorks Boot Application
• LAB: Using Boot Loaders for VxWorks

VxWorks BSP Infrastructure

• BSP infrastructure overview
• BSP board layer
• Processor support library (PSL)
• Board subsystem
• Quick steps for BSP development

VxWorks Kernel Initialization

• Pre-kernel initialization overview
• Pre-kernel early debug options
• Kernel initialization overview
• kernelInit() function
• usrRoot( ) function
• Hardware initialization
• LAB: Browsing VxWorks Initialization Code

Day 2

Component Description Language

• Language and file essentials
• Adding components examples
• LAB: Adding VxWorks Components

VxWorks I/O Interface

• VxWorks I/O system
• I/O system structure
• User space and I/O facilities
• LAB: Creating a VxWorks I/O Device Driver

VxBus and Device Drivers Fundamentals

• VxBus architecture
• The VXB_DRV structure
• Device driver methods
• VxBus initialization sequence
• Device discovery
• Resource management
• Dealing with device interdependency
• Driver debug aids
• Using I/O System with VxBus-Compatible Drivers
• LAB: Integrating a VxWorks I/O Device Driver with VxBus

Day 3

VxWorks Serial Drivers

• Serial drivers overview
• High level serial driver architecture
• Serial driver data structures
• Header files
• Serial driver routines
• VxBus driver methods
• Configuring and initializing serial drivers
• Implementing driver routines
• LAB: Creating a Serial Driver

VxWorks Timer Drivers

• Timer Drivers overview
• VxBus driver methods
• Timer driver routines
• Header files
• Configuring and initializing timer drivers
• Integrating timer drivers
• Implementing driver routines
• LAB: Examining Timer Drivers Implementations

PCI Drivers

• Overview
• PCI hardware architecture
• PCI controller driver description
• PCI bridge driver description
• Data structures
• Header files
• Configuring and initializing PCI controller and bridge drivers
• Implementing PCI controller driver routines

VxWorks Network Drivers

• Network drivers overview
• VxBus driver methods
• END
• Network framing
• Receiving packets
• Sending packets
• Contexts of execution
• MDIO
• LAB: Adding Polling Mode to the VxBus Network Driver