Embedded Intel Atom® Processors
Technological Conversations about Intel Atom® Hardware, Software, Firmware, Graphics
1149 Discussions

Bay Trail E3800 series and SDCARD UHS-I modes

BBerg7
New Contributor I
3,765 Views

Hi,

I'm currently working with the SD card interface on Bay Trail E3800 series. It looks like UHS-I modes are limited to SDR12, SDR25 and DDR50 modes. SDR50 and SDR104 doesn't seem to be supported according to the capability bits. As SDR104 are very similar to HS200 mode, I'm a bit surprised it's not supported. As SDR50 may require tuning and SDR104 requires tuning, that may be the reason why they are not supported.

 

Are there any differences depending on micro code revisions? Some never generations may support SDR50 and SDR104?

 

Coding are no problem as the host capability bits can be checked for support, but it would be nice to know if the fastest modes will be supported in the future.

 

Best regards,

 

B-O Bergman

Winzent Technologies

0 Kudos
1 Solution
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,325 Views

Hello Berth,

Please check the section 13.2, from the document # 512379, http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/bay-trail/atom-e3800-i-design-guide.html Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3800 Product Family Platform Design Guide (PDG).

Best regards,

Gabriel Thomas.

View solution in original post

0 Kudos
14 Replies
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

Welcome back to the Intel Embedded Community.

We are going to review the SDR50 and SDR104 compatibility with the microcode.

Stay tuned!

Regards,

Gabriel Thomas

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views
0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

We suggest you to verify with your BIOS and Driver developers to check that your design has implemented the workaround of the erratum VLI55.

You can find more information in the document # 329901, http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/atom-e3800-family-spec-update.pdf Intel Atom Processor E3800 Product Family, Specification Update - public, page 31.

I hope this information is useful,

Best regards,

Gabriel Thomas.

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

Hello Gabriel,

VLI55 is an xHCI issue. You mean VLI53? In any case VLI53 is referring to DDR50. I know the controller support SDR12, SDR25 and DDR50. I would like to know if it supports SDR50 and SDR104 modes now or will support them in the future.

I'm the BIOS developer and I'm currently implementing the SDCARD initialization. The code for SDR50 and SDR104 will not be needed if these modes never will be available. As our BIOS philosophy is to only implement code that are actually used, I want to know if these modes will be supported by the E3800 series chip, so the code that support them will be useful.

0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

We are sorry for the delay, we will get back to you soon with additional information.

Regards,

Gabriel Thomas

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

Hello Gabriel,

I'm wondering if you have some schematics how Micro SD should be connected to Bay Trail to be able to use UHS-I modes (1.8V). I guess that the SD3_PWREN# and SD3_1P8EN needs to be connected to some power switch circuit, that output 3.3V if SD3_1P8EN is low and 1.8V if SD3_1P8EN if high. The output of the power circuit should be connected to the VDD of the Micro SD connector?

I noticed that the SD3_PWREN# and SD3_1P8EN signals on Minnow board Max are test points and VDD on the Micro SD are connected to 3.3V. Thus the SDHCI power control register are useless and the SDHC/SDXC can only run in 3.3V modes (standard and high speed mode)? To my understanding the SDHCI power control register can be used to switch power on by an external regulator or directly control SOC power to be routed to the SC card VDD. Can you verify it works?

I guess on a fully functional board you may have two options to support 1.8V UHS-I modes. One using the power control register, setting the power to 1.8V after SD card voltage switch. The other using the power on bit in the power control register to drive the SD3_PWREN# signal and the 1.8V enable in the host control register 2 to drive the SD3_1P8EN signal. These signals would then be connected to a power switching circuit driving the VDD input to the SD card.

I hope you can help me sort this out!

Best regards,

B-O

0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

The SDR50 and SDR104 modes are supported by the Intel® Atom™ Processor E3800 processors, because they are part of the SD 3.0 specification, which is the supported by these devices. You can confirm this information in the document # 538136, section 16, http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/datasheets/atom-e3800-family-datasheet.pdf Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3800 Product Family Datasheet .

It is important to clarify that these modes are the bus speeds of the SD High Capacity (SDHC™) and SD Extended Capacity (SDXC™), specifically the Ultra High Speed Phase I (UHS-I) bus design variants. You can confirm this information as a reference at the following web site:

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/bus_speed/ https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/bus_speed/

The UHS-I bus design for SDHC and SDXC cards was added in SD spec 3.0. You can confirm this information as a reference as well at:

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2520/~/sd/sdhc/sdxc-specifications-and-compatibility http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2520/~/sd/sdhc/sdxc-specifications-and-compatibility

I hope this information is useful.

Regards,

Gabriel Thomas

0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,326 Views

Hello Berth,

Please check the section 13.2, from the document # 512379, http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/secure/intelligent-systems/privileged/bay-trail/atom-e3800-i-design-guide.html Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3800 Product Family Platform Design Guide (PDG).

Best regards,

Gabriel Thomas.

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

Hi Gabriel,

Thank you for your help! I studied the suggested document (# 538136) and SD/SDIO card does not support SDR50 and SDR104. It supports 3.3V standard mode and high speed mode, 1.8V (UHS-I) SDR12, SDR25 and DDR50.

Minnowboard Max supports only 3.3V modes as they use fixed VDD at 3.3V. The UHS-I CMD11 (1.8V switch) command will execute, negate the DAT[3:0] lines, but never complete with the DAT[3:0] lines high. Thus the voltage switch sequence described in the standard will fail for UHS-I memory cards. So if anyone is wasting time trying to get UHS-I modes to work on Minnowboard Max, you can stop now.

Best regards,

B-O

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

Hi Gabriel,

I wonder if this applies to the Bay Trail-T series as well, i.e. only SDR12, SDR25 and DDR50 UHS modes are supported? Are there any Bay Trail version supporting all UHS-I modes?

0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

Thank you very much for the great information. It is very useful.

Regards,

Gabriel Thomas.

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

Thank you Gabriel!

I will continue to share information in hope it will be helpful for anyone.

B-O

0 Kudos
BBerg7
New Contributor I
1,324 Views

I'm currently adopting our BIOS to a platform based on Bay Trail-T Z3745. It has eMMC and Micro SD card, so I will soon know the modes supported for the T version of Bay Trail.

0 Kudos
Gabriel_T_Intel
Employee
1,324 Views

Hello Berth,

Great!, This information will be very helpful for sure.

Thanks for your valuable efforts.

Regards,

Gabriel Thomas.

0 Kudos
Reply