ARMv7-M supports 8 or 16 MPU regions. FreeRTOS Cortex-M4 MPU ports so
far assumed 8 regions. This change adds support for 16 MPU regions. The
hardware with 16 MPU regions must define configTOTAL_MPU_REGIONS to 16
in their FreeRTOSConfig.h.
If left undefined, it defaults to 8 for backward compatibility.
Signed-off-by: Gaurav Aggarwal <aggarg@amazon.com>
The reason for the change is that the register is called System Handler
Priority Register 3 (SHPR3).
Signed-off-by: Gaurav Aggarwal <aggarg@amazon.com>
Problem Description
-------------------
The current flash organization in ARMv7-M MPU ports looks as follows:
__FLASH_segment_start__ ------->+-----------+<----- __FLASH_segment_start__
| Vector |
| Table |
| + |
| Kernel |
| Code |
+-----------+<----- __privileged_functions_end__
| |
| |
| |
| Other |
| Code |
| |
| |
| |
__FLASH_segment_end__ ------>+-----------+
The FreeRTOS kernel sets up the following MPU regions:
* Unprivileged Code - __FLASH_segment_start__ to __FLASH_segment_end__.
* Privileged Code - __FLASH_segment_start__ to __privileged_functions_end__.
The above setup assumes that the FreeRTOS kernel code
(i.e. privileged_functions) is placed at the beginning of the flash and,
therefore, uses __FLASH_segment_start__ as the starting location of the
privileged code. This prevents a user from placing the FreeRTOS kernel
code outside of flash (say to an external RAM) and still have vector
table at the beginning of flash (which is many times a hardware
requirement).
Solution
--------
This commit addresses the above limitation by using a new variable
__privileged_functions_start__ as the starting location of the
privileged code. This enables users to place the FreeRTOS kernel code
wherever they choose.
The FreeRTOS kernel now sets up the following MPU regions:
* Unprivileged Code - __FLASH_segment_start__ to __FLASH_segment_end__.
* Privileged Code - __privileged_functions_start__ to __privileged_functions_end__.
As a result, a user can now place the kernel code to an external RAM. A
possible organization is:
Flash External RAM
+------------+ +-----------+<------ __privileged_functions_start__
| Vector | | |
| Table | | |
| | | |
__FLASH_segment_start__ ----->+------------+ | Kernel |
| | | Code |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| Other | | |
| Code | +-----------+<------ __privileged_functions_end__
| |
| |
| |
__FLASH_segment_end__ ----->+------------+
Note that the above configuration places the vector table in an unmapped
region. This is okay because we enable the background region, and so the
vector table will still be accessible to the privileged code and not
accessible to the unprivileged code (vector table is only needed by the
privileged code).
Backward Compatibility
----------------------
The FreeRTOS kernel code now uses a new variable, namely
__privileged_functions_start__, which needs to be exported from linker
script to indicate the starting location of the privileged code. All of
our existing demos already export this variable and therefore, they will
continue to work.
If a user has created a project which does not export this variable,
they will get a linker error for unresolved symbol
__privileged_functions_start__. They need to export a variable
__privileged_functions_start__ with the value equal to
__FLASH_segment_start__.
Issue
-----
https://sourceforge.net/p/freertos/feature-requests/56/
Signed-off-by: Gaurav Aggarwal <aggarg@amazon.com>
