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I promised that there would be an update about the USB, here it is. This update would only talk about the USB 2.0 Host on the Pano Logic G1 devices with ISP1760 USB host controller, so it is probably not applicapable to other platforms. The goal here is to write a set of RTL and software stack, so it is possible to use USB HID joystick/ gamepad and USB mass storage devices on the Pano G1. Speed would not be the concern here.
Hardware Connections
On the Pano G1, an USB 2.0 high-speed host controller (Phillips ISP1760) is connected to the FPGA via 16-bit parallel memory bus. To mitigate one of the controller’s errata, an USB high speed hub (SMSC USB2513) is connected to one of the downstream port of the controller, and all user accessible ports are connected to the USB hub.
Overall Architecture
Though it might be possible to write a FSM to implement some basics of the USB host protocol stack, it is just not very practical. (Device side might be more practical, though). The solution I have here is to continue use the PicoRV32 soft-core processor on the FPGA. The host controller would be mapped to PicoRV32’s memory space as MMIO, then software driver and protocol stack can run on the PicoRV32. When needed, certain outputs can be achieved by using MMIO GPIO (for example, output the currently pressed keys). Hopefully, debugging software would be much easier than debugging hardware.
Generally, there would be several layers. The bottom part is called as the HCD (Host Controller Driver), which is specific to particular hardware, like the controller chip being used. Then it comes the HD (Host Driver), this is the part handles device enumeration and USB Hub communication, this layer is no longer specific to the platform. Higher than that is the class driver, as name suggests this is specific to a device class, for example, HID class or audio class. The driver might be generic to the whole class, or it might just support one of few specific USB devices. Higher than that, usually it is operating system, or in our case, user application.
In conclusion, there are 5 things I need to do:
- Write the RTL to interface ISP1760 with PicoRV32
- Port or write the HCD for ISP1760
- Port some appropriate host driver over
- Port or write the class driver for HID gamepad and mass storage devices
- Write some application code to use the driver
Let’s discuss all these parts.
