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Common Questions
Why use a module?
There are many benefits in using a module, instead of making an own design.
Lower hardware-design-risk, because all important and critical components to run the module are already on the module.
Low software-adaption-cost, because all drivers and OS-adaption are already done.
In most cases lower costs for the whole hardware, because the baseboard can be designed with a lower production-technology. Today's application-processors are demanding for 6 to 8 signal-layers and for finer pin/ball pitches.
The Trizeps-modules are interchangeable within their series ( SODIMM144 and SODIMM200). This allows older products to update to newer processor-generations, when they come availlable. In example a baseboard was designed for Trizeps3, than it now can be updated to Trizeps4-WL to get WLAN-functionality or to Trizeps5 to significant increase computing power.
If it can't be a module...
If a Trizeps, in spite of it's small size, is still too big or if you plan to have a complete integration because of higher quantities, this can be done by Seco.
Hardware Questions
What is needed to run a Trizeps-Module?
To run a product from the Trizeps-series your hardware only needs a power-supply of 3.3V. Supply-pins to the Trizeps-module should be buffered through capacitors. A voltage regulator with 1A nominal output should be sufficient.
Its recommended to additionally use following interfaces:
TXD and RXD Pin of the first serial-interface. This allows an easy access to the bootloader-functions.
SD-card-socket. You can update your product with SD-cards.
USB-slave Pins. With USB-Slave, you may debug your application.
Software Questions
I could not create a new project using Visual Studio
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There are 3 ways of remote-debugging a Windows Embedded CE device:
Using ActiveSync
Using an Ethernet-Connection
Using Platform-Builder Kitl-Interface
The preffered and easiest way to debug an application is ActiveSync. This debug-transport is selected as default in the Seco SDK's and will be used by Visual-Studio and Embedded Visual C++ if you press F5 for debug. To establisch an ActiveSync connection, you need to install ActiveSync ( see Microsoft's download website at http://www.microsoft.com/download ) and connect the device to your PC using an USB-cable.
Another way to connect Visual-Studio to a target-device for debugging is an ethernet connection. This typically involves starting an application on the target-device and than connecting from Visual-Studio to this device.
The third possibility to debug an application is using the Platform-Builder Kitl-Interface. This is typically used, if the above debug-options don't give enough information or when debugging a driver. Kitl-debugging needs Microsoft Platform Builder and a special debug image to connect to. With a debug image you can step into most system calls. See the Getting Started Guides found in the Board Support Packages (Microsoft)-section for details.
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If you want to debug an application using the TCP/IP -connection instead of ActiveSync follow these steps:
Copy the ConManClient2.exe and CMAccept.exe from
.\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CoreCon\1.0\target\wce400\armv4i\-directory to the device: i.e. to theflashdisk-folder. If you are not using the english-version of Microsoft-Windows,.\Program Files\Common Files\might have another name; i.e. in german:.\Programme\Gemeinsame Dateien\.Start ConManClient2.exe on the device.
Start CMAccept.exe on the device.
In Visual Studio 2005 select Tools→Options..
Device Tools→Devices.
Show devices for platform:should show the device associated to this SDK, if not select it.Press Properties.. and the Configure button next to Transport:
Set
Use a specific IP addressto the IP-address of the device.Close all dialogs with OK.
In Visual Studio 2005 select Tools→Connect to Device..
Select the device you configured previously and press Connect.
Now you are connected to the device and may press
F5to debug the application.
How to Connect to Windows CE Device Without ActiveSync with Visual Studio 2008
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How can I change to another display without recompiling the OS-Image ?
Seco offers a bootloader which is able to show a Slash Screen. With the Boot Picture the customer can stamp all display paramters with his *.bmp file into a bootable file. The bootloader is able to pass those paramters to the Seco display driver. These parameters include display-timings as well as the definition how the contrast and backlight is connected. Seco supports PWMs, i2C potentiometers, and eepots, a special FPGA solution or GPIO based switching functionality.
All parameters can also be set by registry parameters. When the bootloader passes params, they can be read back via registry. So the customer can identify the display name and values.
My display flickers....
Display flicker can have several reasons:
Display timings
verify pixel clock → Control3 Register, last 8 Bits = PCD (pixel clock divider)
verify horizontal frequency → Control1 Register
vertical frequency → Control2 Register
Ringing Sync lines, watch line termination → Look for Busstrength registers
HKLM/Drivers/Display/Default/BufferStrength = 2 . . . 10 (default = 5)At very high resolutions set the Bus Arbitration Register → HKLM/Drivers/Display/Default/ARB_CNTRL = try with 0x04000F11
Data and clock voltage levels too small → voltage translators needed ?
How to keep registry changes after a power-cycle
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There are several ways to update a Trizeps-Device.
Using the bootloader, you may update the device with:
a SD,MMC or Compact-Flash card using the autoboot.bat-mechanism. See Using Bootloader Autoboot Function.
the bootloader command interpreter. This allows updates through storage-cards, tftp and the serial interface. See Bootloader Command Reference.
When using Windows CE, you may update the image while the OS is running, with the flashupdate or OS-Update-tool. On newer images, you can modify the image-file to have the extension .os. Double-Tap this file in the explorer and it will automatically start flashupdate with this files.
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