Palmchip has received funding from National ICT R&D Fund to develop a Mobile Data Communication Device. The aim of this proposal is to use the data services provided by the mobile networks for reading utility meters (such as electric, water, and gas), provide Internet Access for computer in Remote areas and internet or Text messaging interface for commercial and military application. The mobile network could also be used to monitor assets’ location. These services highlighted above might be available today through a lot of different interfaces and networks; however this proposal aims to move all these functionalities to one network. This convergence to one network will help reduce the support costs, and thus spread these services to all users instead of just a few. This device could be connected to any laptop or computer through a USB interface and this laptop/computer can be brought online through the GPRS modem. Thus providing instant internet access where internet service providers (ISP) might not be available. It can also function as a standalone device through the on board processor. This GSM based mobile device is designed to be used in embedded applications where a separate host computer is not required but can be used if needed. It will be able to provide both GPRS and EDGE connections depending on the capabilities of the GSM network provider. Palmchip will develop a mobile data communication device, and will demonstrate the technology that it develops on a FPGA board. Palmchip will develop a complete hardware, software solution for this mobile communication device, and place this complete solution at the disposal of the open source community.

The key benefits of this project are:

• A framework and architecture for implementing a System on Chip (SoC) will be developed which will allow future SoC designs to be implemented easily by any designer.
• Verilog code, FPGA board design, and firmware will be placed in the open source community in the form of a working package.
• In future more of the on the board components will be brought inside the SoC.

More information about the project can be found here http://www.ictrdf.org.pk/fp-mdcd.htm

A significant part of the Mobile Data Communication Device Project was to develop a CPU independent System on Chip (SoC) platform. Developers can than use this platform to design application specific SoC, and also put them in open source. The SoC platform package includes detailed functional specifications for each block, the RTL, verification environment for the complete platform, and verification suites for each block which can be run at chip level. Palmchip’s patented and silicon proven Palmbus is used to connect the blocks together. The following diagram shows the blocks available as part of this platform and how they are interconnected.

In order to verify the SoC platform that was developed as part of the Mobile Data Communication Device project a custom board was developed with an ARM processor, FPGA, and all the components necessary to verify the external interfaces. The SoC platform was implemented inside the FPGA, and the various interfaces were verified by writing various test programs on the ARM processor.

The schematics, gerber files and bill of material of this board are available for download.

A picture of the developed board is shown below.

In order to verify the internal and external interfaces of the SoC platform firmware was developed to verify each individual block on the board. A complete integrated development environment has been developed using Eclipse and gcc compiler for ARM. Driver level functions for each block implemented in the SoC platform have been developed to verify data movement, register level tests have been developed for each block, and a top level application using a GSM modem has been implemented to verify each and every block.

The entire driver level code, and application are available as part of the complete board support package.