Commit Graph

171 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Roflin e9b1a75bfe Discard SPRAM responses with no request outstanding
SPRAMArbiter gives ETH writes ABSOLUTE priority -- eth_wr_ready is asserted
combinationally whenever eth_wr_valid is high, so the write port is never
stalled.  Two consequences worth recording:

  - The T5 stall model added to rx_frame_assembler does NOT reflect hardware.
    Its value was eliminating a hypothesis, not modelling reality.
  - EXI READS are what get preempted, so a read response can be delayed --
    including past the end of the transaction that asked for it.

The register file did not guard against that.  The response handler pushed
whatever arrived, and HEADER0 reset `outstanding` and `sp_req` but not
`sp_pending`.  So a late response was pushed into tx_fifo anyway, a held byte
leaked across the transaction boundary, and `outstanding - 1` from zero
underflowed a 4-bit counter to 15 -- which then broke the prefetch bound for
the rest of that transaction.

Now guarded on (outstanding != 0), and sp_pending is cleared in HEADER0.

WHAT THIS DOES NOT CLAIM.  I cannot demonstrate that this causes the +1
descriptor offset seen on hardware (17 of 22 frames, varying frame to frame).
A test written in bba_register_file passes with AND without the guard --
checked both ways -- because that testbench models TX as a capture list per
transaction, with no persistent tx FIFO and no header drain pops, which is
precisely the mechanism by which a leaked byte would shift the next read.  A
test that cannot fail is worse than no test, so it is deleted rather than
banked, and the gap is documented where it was.

THE MISSING TEST, recorded in bba_register_file.py: a bba_top-level test that
performs an EXI DMA read from the SPRAM ring WHILE the ethernet side writes
frames into it.  Only under that overlap can a response be delayed past its
transaction.  No simulation does this today, which is why the offset is still
formally unexplained -- the fix here is a real latent bug, not a proven cause.

--seeds 8: clk 28.1-30.3 MHz, EXI 54.9-62.3 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 7
(clk 30.26, EXI 61.09), flashed.  Gateware only -- .dol unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 19:00:35 +02:00
Roflin f62afff6f3 netboot: actually TRANSMIT the ACK
"timeout mid-transfer (22 seen, 0 bad, 0 lapped, desc@+0=5 +1=17)".  Reception
now works -- 0 bad, 0 lapped, and the descriptor locator handles both offsets
-- but 22 frames seen is almost exactly the sender's 20 retries of block 0.
It never saw an ACK and gave up.

send_ack() called bba_tx_bytes() and nothing else.  That helper only streams
bytes into the TXDATA FIFO: it does not write TWD (the frame length) and does
not fire the NCRA ST trigger.  So every ACK was written into the FIFO and
never put on the wire.  Entirely my bug -- t_tx(), which is proven on
hardware, has done the full sequence all along and I did not follow it.

send_ack() now matches t_tx(): clear IR, write TWD_LO/TWD_HI, stream the
bytes, then write NCRA SR|ST0.  TWD must come BEFORE the stream -- that is
what queues the length so TXFrameDrain consumes concurrently with the EXI
writes; without it the drain waits for a length that only arrives at the ST
trigger and the whole frame must fit the 16-deep FIFO, which is the
truncate-at-16-bytes bug.

It then waits briefly for TI and counts failures as txto=N in the status line.
TI is not proof the frame reached the wire, but its absence is a clear
failure.  Blocking here costs nothing: stop-and-wait means the host is idle
until the ACK lands anyway.

Also recorded: the descriptor offset is genuinely MIXED on hardware, +0 for 5
frames and +1 for 17 in one run.  A race in the assembler, still unexplained,
and not reproducible in simulation -- T2/T5 keep the descriptor at +0 with the
write port free-running and stalled 1-in-3.  The locator makes the transfer
work regardless while the counts stay visible.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 18:50:35 +02:00
Roflin 4831c1353c netboot: locate the descriptor, report the offset split, stop scrolling
Hardware with RBFI active: "timeout mid-transfer (5 seen, 18 bad desc, 0
lapped)", plus a frame dump of "1E FF FF FF FF FF FF 00".

Three things that tells us:
  - lapped = 0, so the ring is no longer being overwritten.  RBFI works and
    overflow is eliminated as the cause.
  - got > 0 ("mid-transfer"), so some blocks DID arrive and match.
  - 0x1E is 286 & 0xFF, the low byte of total_len, followed by the full
    six-byte broadcast MAC and then 0x00.  The frame body is intact but starts
    one byte later than the reader expects.

18 of 23 frames rejected while 5 parsed in the SAME run means the offset
VARIES frame to frame -- a race in the assembler, not a constant.  Simulation
does not reproduce it: T2/T5 put the descriptor at +0 and the body at +4 with
the write port both free-running and stalled 1-in-3, and the mutation controls
for both known handshake bugs fail as expected.  So the cause is still unknown
and I am not going to guess at it a fifth time.

ring_next() now LOCATES the descriptor instead of assuming +0: it probes
offsets 0 and 1 and takes whichever yields a plausible length (> 4 descriptor
bytes, <= a legal frame), then reads the body and advances RRP from that same
offset.  A length is a strong discriminator, so this is a measurement rather
than a guess, and it both lets the transfer proceed and COUNTS the split --
"desc@+0=N +1=M" on success and on timeout.  That distribution is the
measurement needed to find the real gateware bug.

Also trimmed the on-screen guidance: the console holds ~25 lines and the
explanatory text was pushing the failure diagnostics off the top, which cost
two blind round trips.  Status during a transfer is now one line, and the
menu blurb one line.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 18:45:00 +02:00
Roflin 2aa50a7cc3 Reset the assembler's own write pointer on NCRA reset too
Hardware: "timeout: no match (0 seen, 0 bad desc, 0 lapped)".  Zero frames
reached the ring at all -- a regression from 83a62d6, which reset the REGISTER
FILE's copy of RWP on an NCRA reset but not RXFrameAssembler's own `rwp`.

They are two copies of the same pointer.  Resetting one leaves them
disagreeing about where the ring is: a driver that syncs RRP to the register
file's value (page 1) points somewhere the writer is not (wherever it left
off), the free-space sum shrinks with every frame, and once it falls below
_MAX_FRAME_PAGES the new overflow protection drops EVERY frame.  Silently,
because a dropped frame never reaches the ring to be counted -- hence 0 seen
rather than an error.

So fixing one half of a two-copy pointer created exactly the inconsistency the
other half had just been fixed for.  That is the third time in this session
that two copies of one piece of state has caused a hardware fault: the W5100's
init, then RRP, now RWP.  When adding state that the GC can also observe,
reset BOTH copies from the same event or do not keep two.

The reset is placed AFTER the FSM so it takes priority over ADVANCE_RWP in the
same cycle.  No in-flight frame needs abandoning: the same NCRA write that
pulses ncra_rst also clears the SR bit, so rx_enabled is low and the FSM is
already in IDLE.

T6 covers it and is mutation-tested.  Without the reset the frame lands on the
wrong page entirely and carries a previous frame's bytes:
    rwp back to page 1: got 4, want 2
    descriptor:         got [0,0,1,48], want [0,0,0,44]
    body index 0:       got 9, want 192

--seeds 8: clk 28.9-30.8 MHz, EXI 61.0-65.7 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 2
(clk 30.83, EXI 65.72), flashed.  Gateware only -- the .dol is unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 18:41:06 +02:00
Roflin f69b4d084a Model write-port stalls in the assembler testbench (T5)
eth_wr_ready was held constantly HIGH by every test this file ever had, which
is a serious blind spot: on hardware the SPRAM arbiter stalls that port
constantly, because the GC reads the ring over EXI while frames are written
into it.  Any address bookkeeping that depends on ready timing is invisible
until ready actually goes low.

T5 repeats T2's 300-byte frame with ready asserted 1 cycle in 3 and requires
the descriptor and body offset to be IDENTICAL to the unstalled case.

Result: contention does NOT reproduce the one-byte body offset seen on
hardware.  Under stalls the descriptor is still [0,0,1,48] and all 300 body
bytes land at base+4.  So that hypothesis is eliminated, which was the point
of writing it.

Two harness faults found and fixed while building it, both of which produced
false results rather than no result:

  - rx_irq and rx_overflow are 1-cycle pulses, and rx_overflow fires on the
    very tick that consumes the EOF byte -- inside send_frame.  Polling for it
    afterwards missed it entirely, so a correctly DROPPED frame looked like a
    stall.  Both are now latched in the tick helper.
  - send_frame read rx_ready BEFORE tick() applied the next eth_wr_ready.
    rx_ready is combinational on it, so the loop was a cycle out of phase with
    the accept the DUT actually made: it waited on a byte already taken, and
    reported "rx_ready never asserted" for a frame that had stored correctly.
    Ready is now applied, then read, then clocked.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 17:18:04 +02:00
Roflin 92f7d716d9 Add RBFI ring-overflow protection: drop frames instead of overwriting
RXFrameAssembler ignored RRP entirely, so it lapped the reader: a traffic
burst overwrote pages the GC had not read, and the "descriptor" the driver
then parsed was frame data from whatever had replaced it.  That is where the
hardware's 00 00 00 01 came from -- not a dropped write.

This is a product bug, not just a netboot one.  Until now ANY burst could
corrupt a frame Swiss was midway through reading, with nothing to indicate it
had happened.

The assembler now takes the GC's read pointer and computes free space as
(rrp - rwp - 1) mod 15.  On a frame start with fewer than 6 free pages -- the
worst case for 1518 bytes plus a 4-byte descriptor -- it enters DROP_FRAME,
discards to EOF, and pulses rx_overflow, which sets IR[7] (RBFI).  That is the
bit the GC's IMR = 0x86 already enables, so a driver that loses a frame is
told so instead of reading corruption.

Deliberate details:
  - rx_ready stays HIGH while dropping.  Stalling the ethernet master instead
    would back-pressure into the W5100's own buffer and turn a dropped frame
    into a wedged receiver.
  - Six pages are reserved up front because a frame's length is not known
    until EOF.  Starting with less risks running into unread data partway
    through, which is worse than refusing cleanly.
  - have_room is REGISTERED, not combinational.  Feeding a mod-15 subtract and
    comparator into the FSM branch cost real depth in `sync`, the domain with
    the least margin: clk fell 27.8-32.2 -> 27.0-28.0 MHz.  Registering it
    restored 28.4-31.4.  One cycle of staleness is harmless -- rwp moves only
    at end-of-frame and rrp only when the GC writes it.

T4 proves the property that matters, and the negative control REPRODUCES THE
HARDWARE FAULT IN SIMULATION: with the check removed the unread page reads
back as [245, 248, 251, 254, ...] -- frame data where a descriptor belongs.
First time one of today's RX faults has been reproducible on this side rather
than inferred from the console.  T4 also checks the receiver un-latches once
RRP advances, so a full ring cannot kill RX permanently.

Fixed a test artifact in the same pass: rx_overflow fires on the very tick
that consumes the EOF byte, inside send_frame, so polling for a 1-cycle pulse
afterwards missed it and a correctly-dropped frame looked like a stall.  Both
pulses are now latched in the tick helper.

netboot also clears IR (including RBFI) at init so a stale bit is not
inherited from an earlier run.

--seeds 8: clk 28.4-31.4 MHz, EXI 55.2-62.7 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 4
(clk 31.39, EXI 61.85), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 12:36:07 +02:00
Roflin a16d6f0432 netboot: stop the diagnostics slowing the loop they diagnose
Hardware dump: "frame 1 (110 B) etype=6c86 at 12: 72 33 33 00 00 00 16 00".
33 33 00 00 00 16 is an IPv6 MLDv2 multicast MAC from the host, but it sits at
offset ONE, behind a leading 0x72 -- and 0x72 is 114, the low byte of the
W5100's MACRAW 2-byte length prefix.  Hence 6c86 at offset 12: the last byte
of the source MAC and the first of 86DD, both one byte late.

An earlier dump in the SAME build read FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 2B, perfectly
aligned.  Two frames, one build, different alignment -- that is a lapped read
of a partially overwritten page, not a systematic off-by-one.  The alignment
fix is intact.

Two self-inflicted costs removed from the poll loop, whose speed is exactly
what decides whether the writer laps us:

  - The 32-byte hex dump ran on EVERY frame, adding an EXI transaction per
    iteration.  The diagnostic was making the fault it was diagnosing worse.
    It now runs only when a descriptor is actually rejected.
  - RRP was re-read from the device every poll, costing another transaction
    for a value we had just written ourselves.  It is now tracked locally and
    kept in step at the three places that move it.

That takes the per-frame cost from six EXI transactions to four.  It does not
make the race winnable on a busy link -- the ring is 15 pages and has no
overflow protection -- but it stops me handing back a loop that is slower than
the one that produced the measurement.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 12:20:14 +02:00
Roflin 1327f82719 netboot: detect being lapped by the ring writer; quiet-link guidance
The alignment bug is FIXED -- hardware now reports "frame 1 (342 B) etype=0800
at 12: FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 2B", i.e. broadcast dst at 0, host MAC at 6,
ethertype at 12.  Perfectly aligned, correctly received, correctly skipped as
not ours.

So 00 00 00 01 was never a dropped write.  It is frame data being read as a
descriptor, because the ring HAS NO OVERFLOW PROTECTION: nothing in the
gateware consumes RRP, so RXFrameAssembler keeps writing and laps the reader
(the real BBA has RBFI for exactly this).  The poll loop costs ~5 EXI
transactions per frame (~200 us) while a 100 Mbit link delivers a 342-byte
frame every ~30 us, and the ring is 15 pages -- roughly 3 to 11 frames.  Under
continuous traffic pages are reused before they are read.  That is also why it
"worked once out of three tries": it is a race against the host's background
traffic.

ring_next() now returns -4 when the writer is more than two thirds of the ring
ahead, and the caller resyncs and continues instead of parsing bytes that
belong to a different frame.  The timeout reports seen / bad-descriptor /
lapped counts so the three cases stay distinguishable.

Detection is not prevention, so the app and the README both now say to quiet
the link first with gc-testlink.sh, which sets a static address and takes the
interface out of NetworkManager -- stopping the DHCP client whose 342-byte
broadcasts are the main offender.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 12:13:29 +02:00
Roflin 0477e07b84 netboot: survive stray frames, and dump the page instead of guessing
Pressing Z failed instantly, BEFORE the sender was started -- so the frames
in the ring were stray traffic from the host (mDNS, IPv6 RAs, ARP), and a
single descriptor we could not parse aborted the whole transfer.  On a live
network that is guaranteed to happen.

A bad descriptor is now non-fatal: log the first few, resync RRP to the
gateware's RWP, and keep waiting.  Capped at 200 so a genuinely broken ring
still terminates rather than spinning.  This also removes the dependence on
the ring being quiet when Z is pressed, which was never a reasonable
assumption.

The descriptor 00 00 00 01 persists after fixing both dropped-write bugs, and
grep confirms no bare `ready` tests remain, so it is NOT that.  Rather than
theorise a fourth time, the error path now dumps 32 bytes from the head of the
offending page.  That distinguishes the two remaining possibilities outright:
an ethernet header at offset 4 means the descriptor length is simply wrong,
while a header at 3 or 5 -- or at 0 -- means we are reading the wrong place.

Also dumps the first frame whose ethertype does not match, with the ethertype
read at offset 12, because a body written at the wrong offset would show the
ethertype at 11 or 13.  And the timeout now reports how many frames were seen
and how many descriptors were rejected, so "no match" is distinguishable from
"nothing arrived".

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 12:07:13 +02:00
Roflin 86cd5d1abd Fix two dropped-write bugs in RXFrameAssembler's SPRAM handshake
Both from one mistake: eth_wr_valid is scheduled with m.d.sync and so is LOW
for the whole first cycle in a state, while eth_wr_ready was tested
immediately -- and `ready` is usually already high on entry.  Both
valid.eq(1) and valid.eq(0) then fired in the same cycle, the later won, the
write was never issued, and it was dropped SILENTLY.

1. WRITE_LEN_HI dropped the descriptor's HIGH length byte, leaving it at its
   placeholder 0x00.  Hardware read a descriptor of 00 00 00 01 -- a 1-byte
   frame length, impossible for ethernet -- and rejected the ring.

2. WRITE_PLACEHOLDER counted a phantom first write, advancing wr_addr without
   issuing one.  Only THREE placeholder bytes were written and wr_addr ended
   at desc_base+3, so the frame body started at descriptor byte 3 and EVERY
   RECEIVED FRAME WAS SHIFTED ONE BYTE EARLY.  The GC's ethertype test then
   read the wrong offset and silently dropped every frame: the host saw "no
   ACK" while the ring filled and RWP advanced normally.

Both now advance on `valid & ready`, and the body offset is set explicitly
(desc_base + 4) rather than relying on an incremented pointer, so it cannot
drift with the handshake again.

WHY NO TEST CAUGHT THIS, which is the more important half:

  - The testbench drove the RX stream OPEN-LOOP -- one byte per tick, never
    checking rx_ready, which is low through IDLE and the whole placeholder
    write.  It silently lost bytes, including the SOF byte.  A real master
    must hold each byte until accepted.
  - It only ever asserted on rwp and rx_irq.  It declared a spram_writes list
    and never filled it, so NOTHING had ever checked what was written.
  - Every frame it sent was short, and a short frame's high length byte is
    legitimately zero -- so a dropped high byte was indistinguishable from a
    correct one.

The testbench now respects back-pressure, records every write, and checks the
descriptor bytes and the body offset.  T2 sends a 300-byte frame specifically
so the high length byte is non-zero.  Mutation-tested: restoring either bug
fails T2 with got [0,0,0,48] want [0,0,1,48] -- the same shape as the
hardware's 00 00 00 01 -- while T1 (short frame) still passes, which is
exactly the blind spot that let this ship.

Bring-up's 342-byte DHCP frame read a correct 00 00 01 5A only because the
arbiter happened to hold `ready` low on that entry cycle; the domain merge
and the SPRAM response-FIFO removal changed that timing.

--seeds 8: clk 27.8-32.2 MHz, EXI 54.9-64.5 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 8
(clk 32.22, EXI 62.25), flashed.  Gateware only -- the .dol is unchanged.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 12:04:00 +02:00
Roflin 77cd00a63c netboot: hold the screen on failure, dump the descriptor, shrink the block
Two separate problems, one of which was hiding the other.

1. The diagnostics were unreadable.  do_netboot() printed them and returned,
   and the caller's draw_main() redrew immediately and wiped the screen -- so
   two consecutive failures were reported only as "a short flash" with no
   detail, and the error code alone was not enough to act on.  nb_pause() now
   holds the screen until a button is pressed, on every failure path.

   This cost two blind round trips, each of which needs a hand copy of the
   .dol to the SD card.  Printing a diagnosis and then erasing it is worse
   than not printing one.

2. The default block was 1024 bytes, making ~1050-byte frames that span FIVE
   of the SPRAM ring's 15 pages.  The only multi-page frame ever proven on
   this hardware is the 342-byte DHCP broadcast from bring-up, which spans
   two.  Five-page frames are untested territory, and a transfer is the wrong
   place to discover a wrap bug.

   Default is now 256 bytes -> ~296-byte frame -> two pages, deliberately
   close to the proven case.  --block raises it once small blocks work; the GC
   still caps at NB_BLOCK_MAX = 1024.

ring_next() also keeps the four raw descriptor bytes and the page it read
them from, and the error path prints them.  When a length is rejected those
bytes ARE the diagnosis: 00 00 xx xx tells us the assembler wrote a
descriptor and the length is simply unexpected, whereas garbage tells us we
are reading the wrong page.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:48:39 +02:00
Roflin 83a62d60a0 Reset the register file's ring pointers on an NCRA reset
An NCRA reset returns RXFrameAssembler's write pointer to page 1, but the
register file's COPY of RWP was never reset -- it kept whatever the last frame
left.  So after any reset the GC reads a stale RWP pointing at a page the
assembler is not using, and its first RX after a reset reads the wrong page.

CLAUDE.md has stated the intent all along ("NCRA = 0x01 ... resets W5500 +
SPRAM ptrs"); the register file simply never did it.

This is NOT only a netboot problem.  Any driver that resets and then trusts
RWP hits it, Swiss included.  It stayed invisible because the suite's RX test
only checks that RWP CHANGES, never that it points at the right page, and
t_dma used to read a hardcoded 0x100 so it never consulted RWP either.  It
surfaced through netboot, whose RRP = RWP sync landed on a stale page and
found garbage where a descriptor should be.

T1c covers it, and BOTH halves have teeth.  My first version did not: RWP read
[1] with or without the fix because nothing in the testbench had moved it.  It
now drives the assembler's RWP update path to page 9 and writes RRP to 7
first, so the negative control fails on both:

    T1c RWP after NCRA reset: expected [1], got [9]
    T1c RRP after NCRA reset: expected [1], got [7]

A test that passes whether or not the fix is present is worse than no test.

Gateware only -- the test app needs no change and the existing .dol is
compatible: after its reset it reads RWP, now gets 1, and writes RRP = 1.

--seeds 8: clk 28.5-32.2 MHz, EXI 51.3-63.4 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 2
(clk 32.19, EXI 63.23), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:44:03 +02:00
Roflin 8493c0ce9d netboot: sync RRP to RWP at init instead of trusting what we inherited
Pressing Z returned "net-update failed (-2)" -- ring_next() rejecting an RRP
outside the ring (pages 1-15) before a single frame was read.

The pointer was never ours to assume.  Swiss initialises the BBA before
launching us and writes RRP itself, and an NCRA reset does NOT restore the
register file's copy of either pointer: their init values only apply at FPGA
configuration.  So RRP can legitimately be anything on entry, including 0,
and the previous code treated that as a fatal error instead of a state to
establish.

netboot_receive() now reads RWP and writes RRP = RWP after the reset, which
declares the ring empty and consistent whatever it was, so the first frame
read is genuinely the host's first block.  RWP itself is still checked,
because that one IS the gateware's own pointer and an out-of-range value there
would be a real fault rather than inherited state.

The ring-error message now reports RRP and RWP and spells out which of the
three failures it was (EXI access, RRP out of range, implausible descriptor).
Each test costs an SD card copy by hand, so a bare error code is not worth the
round trip.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:36:06 +02:00
Roflin 7cd0071e7c netboot: reset and enable the adapter before waiting for frames
Pressing Z straight after launch is the normal case, and in that case NOTHING
has issued the NCRA reset that triggers the W5100's own init.  MACRAW would
not be running, no frames would be stored, and the transfer would sit in
"timeout: no frames" for a reason with nothing to do with netboot -- the most
confusing possible first-run failure.

Swiss may have initialised the adapter, or an earlier test may have, or
neither.  An NCRA reset here makes all three cases identical: poll until the
RESET bit self-clears, wait out the W5100's 60.3 ms settle (twice over, hence
400 ms), then set the SR bit so RXFrameAssembler actually writes the ring.

Resetting also clears the SPRAM ring pointers, which is wanted rather than
incidental: a clean ring with RRP == RWP == page 1 means the first frame we
see is genuinely the host's first block, not a leftover from a test.

PAR0-5 is now read AFTER the reset, so the source address in our ACKs is the
one the adapter is actually filtering on.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:28:35 +02:00
Roflin 7c9488b617 Keep one generation back, and verify before touching the existing build
Without this, a successful transfer of a BROKEN build stranded you: the only
copy of a working test program had already been overwritten, so there was no
way to attempt another transfer without an SD card reader.

Write order is now temp -> verify -> rotate, and the ordering is the point:

  - The image goes to "<name>.tmp" and is read back and compared BEFORE
    anything existing is touched.  If the transfer, the write or the verify
    fails, the build you are running is still on the card untouched and you
    can simply try again.  Previously a failed write left the destination
    half-overwritten.
  - On success the existing build is rotated to "<name>.prev.dol" and the temp
    file takes its place.  So if the NEW build turns out to be broken, boot
    the previous one from Swiss and transfer again from there.  One generation
    back is enough never to need a card reader.

The two extensions are chosen deliberately:
  - the temp file has NO .dol extension, because Swiss lists .dol files and a
    half-written image Swiss offers to boot is exactly what this avoids;
  - the backup KEEPS .dol, because booting it from Swiss is the whole point of
    keeping it.

remove()/rename() on a file that is not there is ignored -- that is just the
first update on a fresh card.  If the final rename somehow fails, the message
names the .prev.dol path rather than leaving the user to guess where their
working build went.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:26:58 +02:00
Roflin 30563b166d Self-update writes the new build to SD, then boots known-good /boot.dol
Previous version launched the image it had just received, which is the one
thing that cannot be made safe: a broken build hangs the console and the
checks can only catch a truncated or non-DOL image, never a plausible but
broken one.

The flow is now receive -> write to SD -> boot /boot.dol:
  - netboot_sd_write() mounts the card (auto-detecting SD2SP2, then SD Gecko
    slot B, then slot A), writes the image to the path the host asked for,
    and READS IT BACK AND COMPARES.  A half-written .dol that still parses is
    exactly the failure this design exists to avoid, and the card is the one
    component here with no other integrity check.
  - netboot_boot_file() then loads /boot.dol -- a known-good Swiss -- and
    launches that instead.

So the only image this ever jumps into is one that was already known good.  A
broken test build costs nothing: Swiss comes up and can load anything,
including the previous build.  If the SD write or verify fails, nothing is
launched at all and the menu is still there.

The destination path travels in the DONE frame rather than being baked in, so
the host decides where the build lands (send-dol.py --dest, default
/gc_bba_test.dol).

libfat is unmounted before the jump: leaving the card mounted hands the next
image a filesystem libfat still thinks it owns, on an EXI channel it is about
to reinitialise.

Note the SD Gecko in memory-card slot A shares EXI channel 0 with the BBA
(channel 0, device 2).  libogc arbitrates, but SD2SP2 is on its own channel
and avoids the question -- hence the detection order.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:23:38 +02:00
Roflin 4fd337fb24 Fix the netboot launcher: relocate the copier, reserve the staging region
The launcher committed in b438960 would have hung the console, and reviewing
it against Dennis's suggestion to test with Swiss's boot.dol is what surfaced
it -- Swiss is known-good, so a hang could only have been the launcher, but I
would not have been able to tell that from "the transfer is broken".

Two distinct defects, both from the same oversight -- a DOL's sections load
from 0x80003100 upward, which is exactly where this program is running:

1. The copier was an ordinary C function in .text, so it overwrote its OWN
   instructions partway through the copy.
2. The image was staged in a memalign'd buffer, which the destination sections
   can overwrite while it is still being read from.

Fixes:
  - netboot_stub.S: the copy/zero/cache-flush/jump sequence in position
    independent assembly, copied into reserved memory and executed THERE.  It
    has no globals, no literal pool, no TOC references and no calls, because
    any of those would read from the address it was LINKED at rather than the
    one it is RUNNING at.  It also does the dcbf/icbi pass the C version was
    doing through DCFlushRange -- without it the CPU executes stale icache
    lines at the entry point.
  - netboot_reserve(): carves the top of MEM1 and hands it to
    SYS_SetArena1Hi() so neither libogc nor malloc allocates there.  Called
    FIRST in main(), before the framebuffer.
  - netboot_launch(): verifies every text/data section AND bss against the
    reserved region and refuses (-3) if any would land on it, instead of
    corrupting the staged image or the copier mid-flight.  Also hands the new
    image a stack inside the reserved tail.

The app now tells you on screen to send Swiss's boot.dol first, and the README
explains why: the launcher and the transfer can each be broken independently
and a hang looks identical, so the first send should be an image whose success
is unmistakable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:13:32 +02:00
Roflin b438960eb5 Add self-update over the BBA: receive a .dol and relaunch into it
Copying to SD and rebooting is now the slowest part of the loop.  Z in the
test app pulls a new .dol over the adapter and launches it.

Deliberately NOT built on an IP stack.  Frames carry a private ethertype
(0x88B5, IEEE 802 local experimental 1) and a 12-byte header, so there is no
ARP, no IP, no checksums, and no libogc network driver competing with our raw
driver for the EXI channel.  It reuses exactly the two paths the suite already
proves on hardware: bba_tx_bytes() for TX and the SPRAM ring at RRP for RX.
A side benefit is that each update is a few hundred round trips through that
path -- a soak test we did not have.

STOP-AND-WAIT is load-bearing, not laziness.  The gateware does not consume
RRP, so RXFrameAssembler can overwrite ring pages the GC has not read yet;
there is no overflow protection.  One block in flight means the ring never
holds more than one unread frame, so the missing protection cannot bite.  Both
the header and the README say not to make this a sliding window without adding
RBFI-style protection first.

Failure behaviour, so a bad update never costs a power cycle:
  - 30 s idle with no frames, or 5 s mid-transfer, aborts to the menu rather
    than hanging.
  - A duplicate block is RE-ACKed rather than ignored, because a duplicate
    means our previous ACK was lost and re-ACKing is what lets the host move
    on.
  - netboot_receive() re-asserts the NCRA SR bit first: an earlier test may
    have left receive disabled, and then this would wait forever for frames
    the gateware is not storing.
  - netboot_launch() refuses an image whose entry point or first text section
    is not in MEM1 instead of jumping into a mis-parsed header.

The jump itself is the one unavoidable risk: once sections are copied and
interrupts are off, a bad image hangs the console hard enough to need a power
cycle.  The MEM1 check is what stands between a truncated transfer and that.

Host side is scripts/send-dol.py (AF_PACKET, needs sudo).  The GC's MAC is
discovered from its first ACK, so neither side needs an address configured.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:08:48 +02:00
Roflin 3db4ab0851 Reset both SPRAM ring pointers to page 1, not 0
The DMA descriptor test reported "RRP page 0 outside ring pages 1-15" on a
board whose RX path was working (t_rx passed: RWP advanced and RI fired), so
the pointer itself was wrong.

RXFrameAssembler's write pointer resets to _RX_PAGE_FIRST = page 1 -- the ring
is pages 1-15 and page 0 holds the register region -- but the register file's
r_rwp_lo and r_rrp_lo were plain Signal(8) and reset to 0.  Two consequences:
the register file and the assembler disagreed about where the ring starts, and
a driver reading its first frame from RRP=0 gets the REGISTER page instead of
the frame, which is at page 1.

It hid because RRP == RWP == 0 looks self-consistently empty, so nothing
complained until something actually read the pointer.  RRP is driver-owned
(the GC writes it after consuming frames) but its RESET value is ours, and
RRP == RWP == 1 is the correct initial state: empty, pointing at the ring
start.

T1b locks down both reset values AND imports the assembler's constant to
assert it matches, because two copies of a page number in two modules is
exactly how the off-by-one got in.

--seeds 8: clk 28.x-32.2 MHz, EXI 56-60 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 8, flashed.

NOT fixed here, and worth separate attention: nothing in the gateware consumes
RRP, so RXFrameAssembler can overwrite pages the GC has not read yet -- there
is no ring-overflow protection (the real BBA has RBFI for this).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 11:06:22 +02:00
Roflin 19044307bf Make the DMA descriptor test follow RRP instead of hardcoding 0x100
t_dma reported "descriptor len implausible (ring empty?)" and skipped on a
board that had just PASSED the RX test, so a frame had certainly arrived --
RWP advanced and RI fired.  The test was looking in the wrong place.

RWP/RRP are PAGE pointers into the 15-page ring, so the next unconsumed
frame's descriptor lives at RRP*256.  Reading SPRAM_BASE (0x0100)
unconditionally only works while nothing has been consumed and the ring has
not wrapped; once RRP has moved, 0x100 holds a stale or overwritten page.

t_dma now reads RRP, streams from RRP*256, and distinguishes the cases it used
to lump together:
  - RRP == RWP      -> genuinely empty, SKIP, and says to send it a frame
  - page outside 1-15 -> FAIL, with the page number
  - implausible len  -> FAIL, and reports RWP too so it is diagnosable

The old message could not tell "no frame yet" from "looked in the wrong
place", which is exactly why the skip was mysterious.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:55:15 +02:00
Roflin a5ca8b0cda Skip the raw ID dump once id_phase is consumed; record the full console pass
The whole gc_bba_test suite now passes on a real GameCube: Identity (device
ID 04 02 02 00, HIPR, NWAYS), Registers, Reset/control, EXI integrity (speed
sweep ok=[1,1,1,1,1,1], per-speed dump clean at all six indices, raw reg dump
0x17 in slot 0), Ethernet, and SPRAM/DMA -- at the real 27 MHz EXI rate.

The one reported failure was t_raw_id, and it was not a fault: an earlier
suite had already issued the NCRA reset that clears id_phase, after which
address 0 correctly reads back NCRA.  t_devid already guarded for this; t_raw_id
did not, so a full run cried wolf.  It now returns SKIP like t_devid, and both
messages say reflash/reset the FPGA rather than power-cycle the console, which
is what actually restores id_phase.

CLAUDE.md records the device-ID fix and, importantly, that simulation CANNOT
reproduce the bug it fixed -- bba_top passed the ID at EXI_HALF=1 beforehand,
because sim's sync-to-EXI latency ratio does not match silicon closely enough
to miss a 296 ns window.  Anyone "simplifying" the ID back into the register
file will keep a green suite and break hardware.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:53:59 +02:00
Roflin 7587636b48 Answer the device-ID query from the bit engine, not the register file
bba_devid fails on a console with 00 04 02 02 -- the ID correct but one byte
late -- and it fails in its REAL shape, with the 16 us gap and exactly four
bytes clocked, so this is not the t_raw_id probe artefact.  The register suite
passes, so register-space reads are fine; only command space is affected.

Cause is latency, not phase.  A command-space header is two bytes, so the
reply must be in the tx FIFO by the LAST RISING EDGE of the header transfer:
one byte time, 296 ns at 27 MHz.  The round trip is rx AsyncFIFO (~125 ns) +
a sync cycle + tx AsyncFIFO (~110 ns) = 280-320 ns, marginal by construction.
HEADER0 already pushed in the same cycle it consumed byte 0, so the FSM side
was already as early as it can be.

The inter-transfer gap cannot rescue it: the load happens on that last rising
edge and the clock is PAUSED afterwards, so no edge exists during the gap for
anything to update.  That is why bba_devid's 16 us gap makes no difference.

Pre-pushing the ID at CS-fall does not work either -- the engine's
unconditional per-byte pops would eat it, and the header length is not known
until byte 0 has been decoded, which is the latency in question.

So take the round trip out of the path.  The device ID is a hardwired constant
and belongs to the physical interface rather than to the register file, and
byte 0 == 0x00 identifies the query exactly (bit 7 clear = command space, bit
6 clear = read, reg 0).  SPIMode3Slave now recognises it and answers
04 02 02 00 from the EXI clock domain, with no CDC at all.  The only thing it
needs from sync is id_phase, a single bit that changes once, crossed with an
FFSynchronizer.

The register file's ID path is REMOVED rather than kept as a fallback: left
in, it would push bytes that a 2-byte header has too few pops to drain, which
is exactly how an earlier version made the NEXT enumeration come back a slot
late.

Tests follow the responsibility:
  - spi_mode3_slave T7: the query returns 04 02 02 00 with the tx FIFO
    deliberately feeding 0x00, so only the fast path can be answering.
  - spi_mode3_slave T8: and it is GATED -- with id_arm low, 0x5A comes
    through from the FIFO.  Without this the fast path would hijack address 0
    forever and the GC could never read NCRA back after its own reset.
  - bba_register_file T1: retargeted to assert the FSM pushes NOTHING for an
    ID query, which is the property that stops stale bytes corrupting the
    following transaction.

Note what these tests do NOT establish: bba_top already passed the device ID
at EXI_HALF=1 before this change, because simulation cannot reproduce a
296 ns window miss -- the sync domain's latency relative to the EXI clock in
sim does not match silicon closely enough.  T7/T8 prove the fast path works;
the evidence that it is NECESSARY is the hardware result plus the paused-clock
argument above.

--seeds 8: clk 28.4-31.0 MHz, EXI 56.7-64.4 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 2
(clk 30.98, EXI 59.47), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:51:37 +02:00
Roflin 5db3b7751a docs: MISO timing solved on hardware; command-space ID latency still open
Console confirms the full-cycle-early launch: speed sweep ok=[1,1,1,1,1,1],
per-speed dump 0:1700 through 5:1700, raw reg dump 0x17 in slot 0.  Register
reads are correct at every EXI speed index including 27 MHz.

Records what the PHASE_METER measurement showed, why three rounds of
delay-cutting could not work (9 ns removed, byte-identical result each time,
so the remaining cost is pad + global clock insertion + IOB + pad, which no
RTL change reaches), and the testbench rule that falls out of it: a master
must sample MISO in the CLK-LOW phase or a zero-delay simulation reads the
NEXT bit and reports everything one bit early while hardware is correct.

Also records the one remaining failure as OPEN rather than fixed: the
command-space device-ID response is one byte late at 27 MHz because a 2-byte
header leaves only one byte time (296 ns) for a round trip that costs
~280-320 ns, and the inter-transfer gap cannot help because the clock is
paused across it.  HEADER0 already pushes in the same cycle it consumes byte
0, so the FSM side is already as early as possible.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:42:12 +02:00
Roflin 7ac0cbe66c Launch MISO a full cycle early instead of chasing delay
PHASE_METER on a console settled what two rounds of delay-cutting could not.
Per-speed dump, first two slots per EXI speed index, with the register file
and both byte FIFOs out of the MISO path:

  0:8080  1:8080  2:8080  3:8080  4:8080  5:C040

Perfect to 16 MHz, one bit late at 27 MHz.  The 8-slot dump at 27 MHz read
C0 40 40 40 C0 40 40 40 -- a UNIFORM one-bit lag (ones at bits 1, 9, 17, 25,
33, ...), with extra highs at bits 0 and 32 where libogc splits the read into
two 4-byte transfers and MISO tri-states to its pull-up in the gap.  The ID
dump agreed exactly.

Decisive detail: ~9 ns had already been removed from the fabric output path
(the EXI_J4 pad merge, then the CS mux, then the entire fabric route by moving
the output into an SB_IO register) and the hardware result stayed BYTE
IDENTICAL each time.  Nine nanoseconds out of an 18.5 ns budget cannot change
nothing if propagation were the whole story.  What is left is the part no RTL
change can reach: input pad + GLOBAL CLOCK NETWORK INSERTION + IOB clock-to-Q
+ output pad, plus the host's own setup.  There was no fabric delay left to
cut, so cutting delay was the wrong move.

So double the budget instead.  MISO is now launched on the RISING edge
carrying the bit the host will sample at the NEXT rising edge, so the whole
path gets a FULL period (37 ns at 27 MHz) rather than half.  This is safe in
both directions: the insertion delay that caused the problem now covers the
host's hold time on the previous bit, and a full period covers its setup.

  - tx_out is clocked on the rising edge and loads at rx_bit == 7, one
    bit-time earlier than a falling-edge shifter loading at rx_bit == 0.
  - tx_hold and the entire exiclk_n domain are gone: the engine now has ONE
    clock edge and ONE phase reference.
  - synth.py's SB_IO output register moves to NEG_TRIGGER=0.
  - Byte alignment is unchanged -- T2/T5 still land A5 and 3C in the same
    slots.  Only the sub-bit launch timing moved.

Testbench consequence, and it matters: bba_top's master sampled MISO AFTER
raising the clock.  With a zero-delay simulation and a rising-edge launch that
reads the NEXT bit, so the suite would have reported everything one bit early
while hardware was correct.  Both masters now sample in the CLK-LOW phase --
the value the host latches ON the rising edge -- which is also exactly what
the hardware notes say a probe must do.

T2 slot 0 now reads 0xFF (the CS-reset parking value that keeps MISO high
while deselected) instead of 0x00; it is a header byte the host ignores.
T6 re-anchored to the rising edge and still proves miso_next predicts
spi_miso bit for bit, so the SB_IO register stays equivalent to the fabric
model rather than an untested divergence.

--seeds 8: clk 28.9-32.1 MHz, EXI 62.1-65.4 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  The EXI numbers
rise sharply (41.6-49.7 -> 62.1-65.4) because the setup path into the IOB
register is now posedge->posedge against a FULL period instead of
posedge->negedge against a half -- the same doubling, visible internally.
Best seed 3 (clk 32.09, EXI 62.78), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:35:32 +02:00
Roflin a5b4d5bafd Add a per-speed raw dump to the GC test app
Removing ~9 ns from the MISO path (EXI_J4 merge, the CS mux, then the whole
fabric route via an SB_IO output register) left the hardware result BYTE
IDENTICAL: 0B 80 at index 5, ok=[1,1,1,1,1,0].  A ~9 ns reduction against an
18.5 ns half-period budget cannot change nothing if propagation were the
cause, so it is not, despite being speed-dependent.

t_raw_sweep reads the same 8 slots at EVERY speed index and reports the first
two bytes per index, so the shift can be seen as a curve rather than a single
point: a shift that appears or grows with clock rate is a timing problem, one
that is constant across indices is structural.  Run against a PHASE_METER
bitstream it reads the bit engine's byte phase directly at each speed, with
the register file and both byte FIFOs out of the path.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:23:41 +02:00
Roflin 2f081a3e69 Drive MISO from an SB_IO output register
Removing ~2 ns from the fabric MISO path (EXI_J4 merge + the CS mux) did NOT
move the hardware result: the GC still returned a byte-identical 0B 80 at
27 MHz while reading correctly at 16 MHz and below.  Identical rather than
intermittent means the path is well outside the window, not marginally inside
it, so trimming fabric delay further was not going to get there.

MISO is source-synchronous -- driven on the falling edge, sampled by the GC on
the next rising edge -- so the whole path must fit a HALF period, 18.5 ns at
27 MHz, minus global-buffer insertion, pad, connector and the GC's setup.
Driving from fabric spent 8.4-11.5 ns of that on routing alone.

An SB_IO output register sits in the IO tile: clock-to-pad is the IO flop's
own delay with no fabric routing.  nextpnr confirms the path left the fabric
entirely -- miso_io.D_OUT_0 packs at die (9,0), the pad itself, SB_IO count is
unchanged at 24, and no negedge -> <async> path is reported any more.  What
replaces it is a setup path INTO the IOB register (10.07 ns against a
half-period), which is internal and has nothing stacked on top of it.

PIN_TYPE was decoded from yosys's own SB_IO model rather than from memory,
because wrong bits there produce a silently dead or mistimed output:
  [5:4]=10     tri-state, combinational OUTPUT_ENABLE
  [3]=0,[2]=1  dout = dout_q_0, single-rate REGISTERED output
  [1:0]=01     simple input (unused)
  NEG_TRIGGER=1 moves the IO registers to the FALLING edge.

To keep simulation and silicon agreeing about MISO, the slave exposes
miso_next -- the value the shift register WILL hold after the falling edge --
and spi_mode3_slave T6 proves it predicts spi_miso bit for bit.  Without that
the IOB register would be an untested sim/hardware divergence, which is the
exact class of bug that has cost this design the most time.

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE: MISO is now TRI-STATED when CS is high, held high by the
pad's PULLUP, instead of actively driven high.  EXI MISO is a SHARED bus --
SP1 is on channel 0 alongside memory-card slot A -- so driving it while
deselected was wrong and could fight a card.

--seeds 8: clk 28.5-30.7 MHz, EXI 41.6-49.7 MHz, 8/8 PASS.  The EXI numbers
fall (62 -> 49) because the posedge->negedge setup path into the IOB register
is now charged to that domain at a half-period constraint; 41.6 MHz worst case
is still 1.5x the 27 MHz target.  Best seed 3 (clk 30.68, EXI 49.14), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 19:26:08 +02:00
Roflin 5f7f20db43 Cut the MISO output path: drop EXI_J4 and the CS mux; rank seeds by it
Remaining after the bit-phase fix was a SPEED-DEPENDENT failure -- the GC read
correctly at 1/2/4/8/16 MHz and failed only at index 5 (27 MHz), returning
0B 80 = 0x17 late by exactly ONE bit.  Opposite signature to the phase slip it
was hiding under, and this one really is propagation delay.

MISO is source-synchronous: driven on the falling edge, sampled by the GC on
the next rising edge, so the whole path must fit a HALF period -- 18.5 ns at
27 MHz -- minus global-buffer insertion, pad, connector and the GC's setup.
The failing build measured ~10.5 ns of that internally.  Critical path:

  clk-to-q  1.39  tx_shift            (3,12)
  routing   3.60  tx_shift[7]  (3,12) -> (5,5)     to the CS mux
  logic     1.21  Mux(cs_n, 1, ...) LUT
  routing   4.79  miso  (5,5) -> (17,0)            to the J4 MISO pad
            10.99 ns   (2.60 logic, 8.39 routing)

Two removals, both of things that were pure cost here:

1. EXI_J4 is GONE entirely (exi_j4.py, the resource, the AND merge, the docs
   section, scripts/pi-exi-wirecheck.py) -- recoverable from git history.  The
   AND put a LUT in the CLOCK path, denying the EXI clock pad its dedicated
   global-buffer route, and MISO fanned out to the J4 pad at die (17,0) which
   was the far end of the critical output path: 4.79 ns of routing to a header
   with nothing plugged into it.  10.2-11.5 ns -> 9.3-9.6 ns.

2. The Mux(cs_n, 1, ...) LUT is gone from the MISO data path.  It only parked
   MISO high when deselected, which the flop's own reset value does for free:
   tx_shift now has init=0xFF and CS is that domain's async reset, so MISO is
   tx_shift[7] with nothing in between.  Removes 1.21 ns of logic plus the
   3.60 ns route feeding it and lets the placer sit the flop by the pad.

synth.py now PARSES AND RANKS BY the MISO clock-to-pad delay.  Ranking by fmax
was how a board that failed at 27 MHz passed every seed at >=1.29x margin --
fmax was never the binding constraint for this design.

--seeds 8: clk 28.7-32.5 MHz, EXI 49.6-62.1 MHz, MISO 8.38-10.22 ns, 8/8 PASS.
Best seed 8 (clk 30.35, EXI 49.56, MISO 8.38 ns), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 19:16:58 +02:00
Roflin d35688390e Take the TX bit phase from the rising-edge counter, not a falling-edge one
The bit engine had TWO independent phase references: rx_bit counting rising
edges and tx_bit counting falling edges.  Those only stay in step while the
host emits exactly as many falls as rises, and it does not -- a transfer that
begins on a RISING edge (CS asserted while CLK is already low, or the clock
gating between two back-to-back host transfers) delivers a rise with no
matching fall.  tx_bit then slips one bit and never recovers.

RX never notices, because the rising count always equals the host's bit count.
So the header decodes perfectly, the right register is selected, and ONLY MISO
is wrong -- which is what made this look like an output-edge or output-delay
problem for two rounds of debugging.

Measured on a GameCube: every MISO byte shifted right by 2 bits, identically
at every EXI speed index.  NWAYS read 05 C0 (= 0x17 with two leading zero
bits), device ID 01 00 80 80, speed sweep ok=[0,0,0,0,0,0].

Two diagnoses were wrong before this one, and both were ruled out by evidence
rather than argument:
  - NOT propagation delay.  Index 0 is 1 MHz, a 1000 ns bit time; no output
    path fails there.  Speed-independence is the tell.
  - NOT the output edge.  The old rising-edge build and the new falling-edge
    build returned BYTE-IDENTICAL 05 C0.  Flipping the edge would have moved
    it; it did not, so the slip is upstream of the output stage.

What settled it was a measurement.  PHASE_METER=1 builds a diagnostic,
non-functional bitstream whose engine transmits a constant 0x80 per byte
instead of the FIFO head, taking the register file and both byte FIFOs out of
the MISO path so the host reads the engine's byte PHASE directly: 0x80
aligned, 0x40 one bit late, 0x20 two bits late.  Hardware read 0x20 in all
eight slots, localising the fault to the bit engine in a single run.

Fix: the shift register loads on rx_bit == 0.  One phase reference, on the
edge the host counts, so the two cannot drift.

Regression test (spi_mode3_slave T5) asserts CS while CLK is LOW so the
transaction begins on a rising edge.  The old counter fails it by exactly one
bit: A5 3C comes back as 52 9E.  EVERY earlier testbench asserted CS with CLK
high, so falls and rises always matched and the slip was structurally
invisible -- the same blind spot as the Mode 2/3 mix-up, which was invisible
to a master that parked MOSI early.  Vary the starting edge in SPI tests.

Timing after the fix, EXI_J4=1, --seeds 8: clk 26.9-31.1 MHz, EXI 45.8-61.7
MHz, 8/8 PASS.  Best seed 4 (clk 31.07, EXI 56.70), flashed.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 19:04:52 +02:00
Roflin 91c3bf0ece Clock the EXI bit engine from the EXI pin: timing closes on all 8 seeds
Replaces the PLL-fed 54 MHz `capture` domain, which oversampled the GC's
27 MHz EXI clock 2x and so put BIT-level timing across a CDC boundary: the
engine's view of the clock lagged the pin by 2 FFSynchronizer stages plus a
register (~55 ns) against a 37 ns bit time, so MISO came out ~2 bits late and
the GC read 0x17 as 05 C0.  No amount of oversampling fixes that -- 54 MHz
gives only 2 ticks per bit and the part cannot close the 81 MHz that 3x needs.

The engine is now clocked by the pin itself (pin 44 = global buffer input net
6, no board change), making MISO clock-to-Q.  ExiCapture creates four domains:
exiclk (posedge, samples MOSI), exiclk_n (negedge, drives MISO), both
async-reset by CS, plus reset-less exififo_w/exififo_r for the byte FIFO sides
-- reset-less because resetting one side of an AsyncFIFO desynchronises its
gray pointers, and posedge because AsyncFIFO has a posedge-only reset CDC
internally and cannot host a negedge side.

Also removes the SPRAM response FIFO.  The DMA read was one byte late because
the round trip did not fit the protocol's turnaround byte; the arbiter already
exposed valid/ready, so the FIFO bought a cycle of latency and nothing else.
The response is handled outside the FSM (the reply lands in RHDR_PAD, not
SPRAM_STREAM) with a one-entry hold for when tx_fifo is momentarily full.

The PLL was left instantiated but unused after the rewrite; removing it frees
the hard macro and pin 35 (which stays unconnected only because the board is
already built that way).  This is what lifted the pass rate:

  domain            target    before        after
  clk (sync)        24 MHz    28.1-30.2     26.4-32.2   8/8
  capture_clk       54 MHz    2 of 8 PASS   (gone)
  EXI pin domain    27 MHz    --            45.6-64.4   8/8

Best seed 3: clk 32.18 MHz, EXI 55.86 MHz.  The binding constraint has FLIPPED
-- `clk` (1.10-1.34x) is now tighter than the EXI domain (1.69-2.39x) -- so
synth.py ranks seeds by worst RELATIVE margin, not by the EXI number.

synth.py could not have scored this design at all: it required the vanished
capture_clk, and its regex '(\w+)' cannot match nextpnr's exi_clk_$glb_clk
(no $ in \w).  add_clock_constraint was also landing on the wrong net -- under
EXI_J4 the clock is the AND of two pads, not either pad -- so nextpnr silently
fell back to a 12 MHz default and under-optimised the whole EXI domain.

Testbenches:
- spi_mode3_slave had lost its testbench entirely in the rewrite.  Restored
  with a strict Mode 3 master (changes MOSI on the falling edge, samples MISO
  in the clock-low phase) and MUTATION-TESTED: flipping either clock edge in
  the RTL makes it fail.  Both of those bugs previously reached silicon
  against a lax master that parked MOSI well before the edge.
- exi_j4 T2/T3 returned [0,4,2,2].  Real bug: the engine latches the FIFO head
  at each byte boundary, so a 2-byte command header leaves only ONE drain
  slot.  DEVID streamed zeros until CS and left two stale bytes -- one too
  many -- so the NEXT enumeration came back a slot late.  DEVID now pushes
  exactly four bytes and stops.  Register-space reads may still over-push:
  their 4-byte header gives three drain slots.
- Dead ports removed from SPIMode3Slave (hdr_bytes, frame_start, cs_active,
  byte_idx) and the mode2 parameter is gone -- there is one correct edge
  convention and it is now enforced by tests.

All 14 module suites pass, plus bba_top at EXI_HALF=1/2/8.

CLAUDE.md: rewrote the clocking, CDC inventory and module tables; marked the
2026-09-30 capture_clk measurements historical; and corrected the line in
"Critical Protocol Notes" that still stated the INVERTED edge convention
("MOSI sampled on falling, MISO driven on rising" is Mode 2) -- the original
implementation followed that doc error.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 18:36:51 +02:00
Roflin 02239466fb Merge the exi and sync domains into one
bba_top wired ClockSignal("sync") to ClockSignal("exi"), so the two "domains"
were always the same physical clock net.  Everything between them -- six
AsyncFIFOs and three PulseSynchronizers -- was pure latency and logic for a
crossing that did not exist.

  * the six AsyncFIFOs become plain SyncFIFOs
  * the three PulseSynchronizers become wires
  * BBARegisterFile and ExiCapture move from m.d.exi to m.d.sync
  * the exi ClockDomain is gone; HFOSC drives sync directly

The SPRAM request write port is also combinational now.  A registered w_en
costs a 24 MHz cycle, and the protocol's turnaround byte (~296 ns at 27 MHz)
has no cycles to spare.

Passing: bba_register_file, spram_arbiter, rx_frame_assembler, tx_frame_drain,
w5100_parallel_master, uart_shell, status_panel.  bba_top at EXI_HALF=1
(27 MHz, the hardware rate) passes device ID, PAR read/write, NWAYS, RWP and
the 34-byte TX frame.

STILL OPEN: the SPRAM/DMA read is one byte late.  Removing the CDC was not
enough -- the remaining round trip is the rx crossing (exiclk->sync, a REAL
CDC, ~125 ns) plus FSM decode plus the spram_req FIFO, arbiter, SPRAM access
and spram_rsp FIFO, which still exceeds the turnaround byte.  Next step: now
that it is all one domain, drop the two SPRAM FIFOs entirely and give the
register file a direct request/grant port on the arbiter -- that should take
the round trip to ~2-3 cycles and fit.

exi_capture and exi_j4 testbenches still assert removed behaviour (the CS-fall
flush and the old MISO slot timing) and need rewriting for the clocked engine.
Still WIP -- do not flash.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 17:02:58 +02:00
Roflin da21a080d9 TX passes at 27 MHz; remaining DMA offset traced to needless exi/sync CDC
The TX failure was a TESTBENCH artifact, not a design bug.  Between
transactions the bench raised CS for one HP -- 18.5 ns at EXI_HALF=1 -- but
cs_active reaches the exi domain through a 2-stage FFSynchronizer at 24 MHz,
so the register file never saw one transaction end and swallowed the next
one's header as write data.  A real host leaves microseconds between
exi_deselect() and the next exi_select().  With a realistic gap the 34-byte TX
frame now matches byte-for-byte at the hardware rate.

At EXI_HALF=1 (27 MHz) bba_top now passes device ID, PAR read/write, NWAYS,
RWP and TX.  The one remaining failure is the SPRAM/DMA stream, offset by
exactly one byte.

Root cause of that offset, and it is not architectural: bba_top.py:171 does
    m.d.comb += ClockSignal("sync").eq(ClockSignal("exi"))
so exi and sync are LITERALLY THE SAME CLOCK NET.  Every AsyncFIFO between
them is pure overhead.  The SPRAM round trip pays two needless CDC crossings
(~6 cycles, ~250 ns) on top of the arbiter and SPRAM access, giving ~375 ns
against the ~170 ns the protocol's turnaround byte actually leaves once the rx
crossing is subtracted.  Register reads are unaffected because their response
is immediate; only SPRAM is late.

Fix direction: merge the two domains and replace the exi<->sync AsyncFIFOs and
PulseSynchronizers with plain SyncFIFOs/signals.  That removes the latency,
drops a lot of logic, and cannot change behaviour because the clocks are
already identical.

Known failing, both testing removed behaviour rather than new bugs:
  * exi_capture's own testbench asserts the CS-fall flush and the old MISO
    slot timing; the flush no longer exists (header pops drain the FIFO).
  * exi_j4's T3 re-enumerate is off by a byte.
Still WIP -- do not flash.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 16:56:03 +02:00
Roflin a3b3e052bc WIP rewrite: clock the EXI bit engine from the EXI clock pin
Replaces 54 MHz oversampling with a slave clocked by EXI CLK itself:
  exiclk    posedge  sample MOSI (Mode 3 samples on edge 2)
  exiclk_n  negedge  drive MISO (must settle between the master's samples)
  CS_N      async reset for both
EXI CLK (pin 44) is at die (6,0) = global buffer net 6 on the 5k-sg48, so it
can drive a real clock network with no board change.

This removes the capture domain entirely.  Bit-level timing no longer
crosses a clock boundary -- MISO is clock-to-Q instead of 3 ticks of a foreign
clock -- and the only crossings left are the byte FIFOs, which have a whole
byte-time (~296 ns) of slack rather than a fraction of a bit.

AsyncFIFO needs a posedge clock for its internal reset CDC, so the FIFO sides
use reset-less POSEDGE domains on the same pin; the engine pops on the posedge
and hands the byte to the negedge output stage through a register.  The FIFOs
must not see CS: resetting one side of an AsyncFIFO desynchronises its gray
pointers.

Two bugs found and fixed along the way:
  * one pop per byte boundary is all that is needed -- pops during the header
    drain whatever the previous transaction left (replacing the CS-fall flush)
    and the turnaround-byte push lands in data slot 0.  No slot-threshold or
    header-length logic at all.
  * rx_byte/rx_valid had to become COMBINATIONAL.  Registered, they need one
    more clock edge, and after a transaction's final bit the clock stops and
    CS rises -- so the last byte of every transaction was lost (a 4-byte write
    landed as DE AD BE 00, a 34-byte TX as 15 bytes).

At the HARDWARE rate (EXI_HALF=1, 27 MHz) the device ID, NWAYS, PAR
read/write and the W5100->SPRAM RX path now all pass -- none of which has ever
worked at 27 MHz before.  Testbenches now drive the SPI clock with real
delays, since there is no capture domain to count ticks against.

STILL BROKEN: the SPRAM/DMA stream is offset by one byte (its round trip
exceeds the single turnaround byte), and TX lands 15 of 34 bytes.  Do not
flash this yet.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 16:47:55 +02:00
Roflin d95f2147a4 docs: EXI edge fix confirmed on hardware; MISO delay is the one open fault
Hardware speed sweep after the Mode 3 fix: ok=[1,1,1,0,0,0] -- register reads
are CORRECT up to 4 MHz and fail from 8 MHz.  The MOSI edge fix works and the
gateware is functionally correct; what remains is a fixed MISO output delay of
~3 capture ticks (~55 ns: 2 stages of input FFSynchronizer plus 1 tick to
register the shift).  At 27 MHz that is ~2 bits, which is exactly the observed
NWAYS read of 05 C0 = 0x17 >> 2, and the 250ns-pass / 125ns-fail threshold
brackets the delay at 60-125 ns.

Also records that lowering the EXI clock is not available: Swiss hardcodes
EXI_SPEED_32MHZ in exi_select().

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 16:33:33 +02:00
Roflin afc10d7e5c fix(spi): sample MOSI on the RISING edge -- real Mode 3, not Mode 2
The docs call this 'Mode 3 (CPOL=1, CPHA=1)' and then describe sampling MOSI
on the FALLING edge.  Idle-high plus sample-on-falling is Mode 2.  Real Mode 3
samples on the second edge of each cycle, which with an idle-high clock is the
RISING one, and that is what the GameCube does.

Sampling on the same edge the GC drives MOSI latched the PREVIOUS bit, so
every byte arrived one bit late in both directions, at every clock speed:
the 0x80 register-space header byte was read as 0x00, which decodes as a
command-space device-ID query -- so NWAYS reads returned the device ID and the
speed sweep failed at every index.  Hardware raw dump, first transaction after
an FPGA reset:

    00 00 02 01 01 00 00 00      02 01 01 00 = 04 02 02 00 >> 1

The Pi probe never caught it because that script was written to match this
device, and every simulation testbench drives MOSI many capture ticks before
toggling the clock, so MOSI is stable at BOTH edges and the convention cannot
be distinguished.  The bba_top master now models a true Mode 3 master (drive
on falling, sample on rising) so the suite can tell the difference.

SPIMode3Slave(mode2=True) restores the old behaviour for the Pi/J4 probe.

Known remaining issue: at EXI_HALF=1 (27 MHz, 2x oversampling) reads are still
shifted, because the 2-stage input FFSynchronizer costs 2 capture ticks which
at 27 MHz is a whole bit.  That is a separate fault and only bites at 2x.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 13:00:49 +02:00
Roflin 6f151cd1ff gc_bba_test: add raw slot dumps to locate the response
Reading one byte and getting 0x00 cannot distinguish 'decode is wrong' from
'reply is late' -- a one-byte window has nowhere for a late answer to show up.
These two probes clock EIGHT data bytes and print every slot, so the position
of 0x17 (NWAYS) or 0x04 (device ID) gives the latency directly, the same way
bit-shift analysis turned 00 00 00 10 into 'correct, 22 bits late'.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 12:46:46 +02:00
Roflin e682fded4a gc_bba_test: disambiguate the speed sweep result
'highest good = 0' meant both 'only index 0 works' and 'nothing works', which
are opposite diagnoses -- the first says oversampling, the second rules it
out.  Now reports the per-index map and says NONE explicitly.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 12:43:11 +02:00
Roflin 7df0c97c78 sim: make the EXI clock rate configurable; default was 8x too slow
bba_top derived its EXI clock from HALF, defaulting to 3.4 MHz against the
real GC's ~27 MHz.  At that rate the whole CDC response latency fits inside
one bit time, so the suite passed green on a design that failed on console --
this is how both the wrong-header-format and the TX-pop-threshold bugs
reached hardware with everything green.

HALF is now EXI_HALF-configurable (default 8 for fast regression).  At the
real rate, EXI_HALF=1, every read comes back shifted right by ONE BIT:
04 02 02 00 -> 02 01 01 00, NWAYS 0x17 -> 0x0B.  That is a bit-level sampling
misalignment, not the byte-level latency chased earlier: at 54 MHz capture
there are only 2 ticks per EXI bit and the 2-stage FFSynchronizer on EXI CLK
costs 2 ticks, a whole bit.

Recorded as an open bug in CLAUDE.md with the measurements.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 12:36:50 +02:00
Roflin 399fbf02a4 fix(exi_capture): TX pop threshold must follow the header length
tx_fifo.r_en popped from txld_cnt >= 2, hard-coded for the old invented
2-byte header where the data phase began at slot 2.  The real protocol's
register space uses a 4-byte header, so data starts at slot 4 -- two bytes
were being consumed before the GC clocked any data, and every register read
came back wrong.  On hardware: HIPR and NWAYS both read 0x00, and the device
ID returned 01 80 c0 c0 (stale bytes, including our own header command bytes
0x80/0xC0 echoing back out of the FIFO).

The threshold is now derived from byte 0 bit 7, which is exactly what selects
the header form:  register space -> 4 slots, command space -> 2 slots.

Also removes the pad-slot filler byte the register file was pushing.  That was
compensating for this bug rather than fixing it -- it made the simulation pass
while hardware still failed, which is how it slipped through.  With the pop
threshold correct the filler is wrong, and both the unit and integration
testbenches agree without it.

All suites pass: bba_register_file, bba_top, exi_capture, exi_j4,
spi_mode3_slave, tx_frame_drain, spram_arbiter, rx_frame_assembler,
w5100_parallel_master.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 12:27:31 +02:00
Roflin 2458884160 Rework the EXI decoder to the real GC<->BBA protocol
Replaces the invented 2-byte header (addr split across both bytes, 2-bit
length field) with the protocol libogc and Swiss actually speak:

  command  (bit7=0, 6-bit reg)   [reg, 00, 00, data]  one 4-byte transfer
  register (bit7=1, 16-bit reg)  [0x80|w<<6, ah, al, 00] + data until CS

This was not an optimisation: the old decoder read Swiss's NWAYS read
(80 00 31 00) as 'write 0x31 to NCRA', and bit 0 of 0x31 is RESET, so every
register read would have reset the device.

Changes:
  * 16-bit address; no length field -- register reads and writes now stream
    until CS, like the SPRAM path already did
  * RHDR_LO starts the SPRAM fetch as soon as the address completes, using
    the trailing header byte as the prefetch window the protocol provides
  * command space serves EXI regs 0x02/0x03 (interrupt mask/status), the only
    two Swiss uses
  * EXI_GetID gets its own path: it offers just ONE header byte of warning, so
    the first ID byte is pushed the instant byte 0 identifies the query

Two timing subtleties, both found by simulation and commented in place:
  * MISO is driven LIVE from the tx FIFO head, so a byte pushed while the pad
    byte is on the wire appears in the pad slot.  A filler byte is parked
    there (MISO is don't-care through the header) so the first real response
    lands in data slot 0.
  * the prefetch must be one-shot; re-firing while waiting for the pad byte
    consumed the register stream early and shifted reads by a byte.

All testbenches updated to the real format and passing: bba_register_file
(7), bba_top (8 incl. the full W5100->SPRAM->GC loop and TX), exi_j4,
exi_capture, spi_mode3_slave, tx_frame_drain, spram_arbiter,
rx_frame_assembler, w5100_parallel_master.  gc_bba_test rebuilt against the
new protocol.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 11:58:52 +02:00
Roflin f2762f613d docs: record the REAL GC<->BBA EXI protocol; current header format is wrong
Read from the two drivers that will actually talk to this device: libogc
(libdb/uIP/bba.c) and Swiss (cube/patches/bba/bba.c).  The implemented 2-byte
header with a 2-bit length field does not match either.

The real protocol has two address spaces selected by bit 7 of byte 0, and no
length field at all -- the data phase runs until CS:

  COMMAND  (6-bit reg)   one 4-byte readwrite; response in byte 3
  REGISTER (16-bit reg)  [0x80|w<<6, reg>>8, reg&0xFF, 0x00] + data phase

NCRA, IR, NWAYS, RWP, RRP and PAR all live in the register space.  The
mismatch is destructive rather than merely non-functional: Swiss reading
NWAYS sends 80 00 31 00, which the current decoder reads as 'write 0x31 to
NCRA' -- and bit 0 of 0x31 is RESET.  Every register read would reset the
device.  The device-ID query is the one case where the two formats coincide,
which is exactly why enumeration worked on hardware and nothing else would
have.

Also explains the 22-bit response latency measured on console: the trailing
0x00 byte in the real header is the device's prefetch window, and the current
format spends those bits on the length field, leaving zero slack.  Adopting
the real format is required for compatibility anyway and recovers ~296 ns of
the ~815 ns deficit.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 11:47:50 +02:00
Roflin abc61f3e66 gc_bba_test: add header->data idle gap; device replies 22 bit-times late
First on-console run: the Identity suite failed with the device ID reading
00 00 00 10 instead of 04 02 02 00.  Bit analysis shows that is an EXACT
match for the correct stream delayed by 22 bits -- the device answers
correctly, just too late for a 32-clock window to catch more than its first
set bit.  Not corruption, and not a broken link: response latency.

At EXI index 5 (~27 MHz) 22 bit-times is ~815 ns, which is about what the CDC
chain costs (rx AsyncFIFO capture->exi, register-file decode, tx AsyncFIFO
exi->capture, SPI engine) at a 24 MHz exi clock.  The design expects the GC to
hold the clock idle between the header write and the data read so the register
file can prefetch the response; libogc's inter-call overhead alone is not
enough at full speed.

Adds bba_gap_us (default 16 us, busy-waited with CS asserted since we hold the
EXI lock) and a Gap sweep test that reports the minimum clean gap at the
current speed -- which measures the latency rather than guessing at it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 11:37:00 +02:00
Roflin b363e76ec4 scripts: add gc-testlink.sh to configure the PC side of the test link
Sets the PC to 10.0.0.50/24 so the GC test suite's RX test can pass: its TX
test ARPs for that address and the kernel answers ARP for an address it
actually holds, so no listener process is needed.  Without it RX fails
legitimately for lack of traffic.

Handles the NetworkManager trap -- NM silently strips a hand-added address
within seconds, so the device is set unmanaged first and handed back on
'down'.  Warns that this drops any existing connection on that NIC.

up / down / status / watch, with wired-interface auto-detection (prefers one
with a carrier) and a status readout that flags no-carrier along with the
likely cause: the W5100S rail is gated off GC_ON, so it is dead whenever the
console is off.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 11:26:52 +02:00
Roflin d8725392a5 gc_bba_test: fix inverted EXI error checks; builds clean
libogc's EXI functions return '1 on success, <=0 on error', but every call
site tested '== 0'.  A -1 error return therefore read as success, so a failed
EXI_Lock or EXI_Select would fall through and the subsequent transfer would
produce garbage reported as a misleading test failure rather than an EXI
error.  All six call sites now test <= 0.

Also retries EXI_Lock for ~100 ms: it fails outright rather than blocking when
another subsystem holds the channel, and Swiss or a libogc driver may hold it
briefly -- without the retry a transient collision surfaces as a test failure.

Builds clean with devkitPPC 16.1.0 / GCC 16, no warnings: 172 KB .dol.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 11:24:47 +02:00
Roflin ccf4eb4996 Add on-console GameCube test suite + devkitPPC in the devcontainer
gc_bba_test/ builds a .dol that drives the adapter over raw EXI from the
console and reports pass/fail per test on the TV, navigable with the pad.

Uses libogc's EXI API against EXI0:2 (Serial Port 1) rather than its bba
network driver: driving the register file directly gives each check its own
verdict, so a failure points at a specific register instead of at
'networking'.  Six suites - identity, registers, reset/control, EXI link
integrity (including an EXI clock-index sweep), ethernet TX/RX, SPRAM/DMA
streaming.

Encodes the hardware lessons from bring-up so the app cannot mislead:
  * the device ID is a one-shot cleared by the first NCRA reset, so it is
    reported SKIP on a re-run rather than FAIL
  * TI means the frame reached the W5100, NOT the wire - the TX test says so
  * register reads clock exactly the requested length (over-clocking
    desynchronises the next transaction)
  * TXDATA is written one byte per transaction (eff_addr auto-increments)

.devcontainer/Dockerfile gains the devkitPro gamecube-dev group.  devkitPro
publishes no .deb on GitHub, so this uses their installer script against
apt.devkitpro.org -- which is 403 from inside the running container's egress
but reachable from a host-side docker build.  Rebuild the container to get it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-03 10:59:37 +02:00
Roflin f2a721cb1f docs: record the two CPL export steps the recipe was missing
Regenerating the production files for the V2.1 eFuse rework surfaced two
steps that neither the skill nor CPL_ROTATIONS.md documented, both caught
only by diffing against the previously-shipped CPL:

- --exclude-dnp does not drop 'in_bom no' parts, so J4 and TP1-TP5 landed in
  the raw export although the shipped CPL excluded them.  Filter to
  designators that have a BOM line; the two sets should end up equal.
- kicad-cli emits signed rotations while the correction step's % 360 only
  normalises corrected parts.  Mixing the two made the diff show 34 phantom
  rotation changes (270.0 vs -90.0 is the same angle), burying the 2 real
  ones.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 15:20:56 +02:00
Roflin c32ae49f28 fix(efuse): connect U13's exposed thermal pad to GND
The TPS25961's exposed pad is GND and the datasheet requires it be connected
to the GND plane (Table 5-1; package note 3 adds a mechanical requirement).
REVIEW.md claimed this was honoured because the footprint is the _ThermalVias
variant -- but the variant alone connects nothing.  hardware/TPS25961.kicad_sym
defined pins 1-6 only, with no pin for the exposed pad, so KiCad had nothing to
map onto footprint pad 7 and left it netless: an isolated copper island under
the chip with its thermal vias going nowhere.

Adds pin 7 (GND, power_in, hidden, stacked on pin 4) to the symbol library, the
cached symbol in exi.kicad_sch, and the U13 instance.

PCB updated and verified: U13 pad 7 carries GND on all four elements (both SMD
rects and both thermal vias), R48 placed, EFUSE_OVLO routed, R49 gone.  DRC
reports 0 violations, 0 unconnected pads and 0 schematic parity issues -- the
0-unconnected result is what confirms pad 7 is tied into the GND network rather
than merely labelled.  The 4 DRC errors previously dismissed as zone-fill
phantoms on this pad are gone, though zones were refilled in the same pass so
that is not proof of cause either way.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 15:15:19 +02:00
Roflin 20a8a27e71 fix(bom): correct Tolerance fields that contradicted their MPN
13 resistors carried Tolerance=5% while their MPN is a UNI-ROYAL 0402WG*F*
part -- F is the EIA code for +/-1% (J is 5%), and LCSC confirms the 1% rating.
The parts are 1%; only the metadata was wrong.

Worth fixing rather than leaving: the same part number appearing with two
different tolerances splits into two BOM lines under any grouping that
includes the field, and it misleads anyone sizing a divider.  R48 in the eFuse
ladder was one of these (fixed in a9052c6) and there it was load-bearing --
at a genuine 5% the OVLO worst case reaches 17.05 V, over U3's 17 V limit,
versus 14.42-15.83 V at the correct 1%.

Metadata only; no circuit or part number changes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 09:14:22 +00:00
Roflin a9052c6a6b Rework the eFuse schematic for readability; 3-resistor OVLO divider
Redraws the eFuse area with proper wires instead of labels-on-pins, and
simplifies the divider that 228ff03 added.

The first draft split R3 into 12 k + 2.2 k to hit 14.2 k, purely to preserve
the original ~8.9 V UVLO.  That bought a fourth resistor and a named junction
net (EFUSE_R3MID) that nothing else touched.  The ~9 V UVLO turned out to be
an assumption carried over from the original design rather than a requirement:
U3's minimum input is 4.5 V, so relaxing it to 6.78 V costs nothing and is in
fact less likely to chatter if the GC rail sags.

  R46  620 k -> 100 k   (C25741)   R1: 12V_RAW -> EN/UVLO
  R47  100 k -> 12.4 k  (C11692)   R2: EN/UVLO -> OVLO
  R48  NEW      10 k    (C25744)   R3: OVLO -> GND
  R49  removed
  R45  100 k -> 33 k    (C25779)   ILIM 0.52 A -> 1.52 A

OVLO is unchanged at 15.18 V typ (14.47-15.78 worst case) against U3's 17 V
limit, so the simplification costs nothing on the parameter that matters.

Verified: 12V_RAW(R46.2) / EFUSE_EN(R46.1,R47.1,U13.5) / EFUSE_OVLO(R47.2,
R48.1,U13.2) / GND(R48.2,R45.2,U13.4); 152 -> 151 components with only R49
removed; ERC 0 violations.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 09:14:04 +00:00
Roflin 228ff03cb6 schematic: eFuse OVLO ladder + ILIM fix (V2.1)
Implements the values worked out in 6ce7657.

  R45  100k -> 33k    ILIM 0.52 A -> 1.52 A (clears the 621 mA inrush)
  R46  620k -> 150k   ladder R1: 12V_RAW -> EN/UVLO
  R47  100k -> 10k    ladder R2: EN/UVLO -> OVLO
  R48  NEW    12k  \  ladder R3 = 14.2k: OVLO -> GND
  R49  NEW    2.2k /
  U13 pin 2 (OVLO) taken off GND and onto the new EFUSE_OVLO net

Verified: netlist shows 12V_RAW(R46.1) / EFUSE_EN(R46.2,R47.1,U13.5) /
EFUSE_OVLO(R47.2,R48.1,U13.2) / EFUSE_R3MID(R48.2,R49.1) / GND(R49.2,R45.2,
U13.4); 150 -> 152 components with none dropped (the malformed-property trap
from the kicad-bom-edit skill); ERC 0 violations.

PCB placement and routing still to do.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 08:52:34 +00:00
Roflin 6ce7657f05 eFuse V2.1 fix: datasheet-derived OVLO ladder + ILIM correction
Works the TPS25961 fix out from the datasheet rather than from memory, and
re-solves it against resistors already on the BOM.

OVLO: TI's 3-resistor ladder (eq 7/8) -> R46 620k->150k, R47 100k->10k, new
R48 12k + R49 2.2k (=14.2k).  UVLO 8.93 V typ, unchanged from today; OVLO
15.21 V typ, 15.81 V worst case.  The OVLO ceiling is set by U3 (TPS562201,
4.5-17 V input), not by the eFuse -- that rules out a tempting 3-resistor
solution tripping at 17.24 V.

ILIM: R45 100k -> 33k.  0.516 A sat BELOW the board's own 621 mA inrush, so
the part entered current limiting on every power-on (-> thermal shutdown ->
retries -> latch-off).  Inrush control comes from the fixed 5.17 V/ms slew
rate, not ILIM, so raising ILIM costs no inrush protection; it is pure fault
protection at ~27x the measured 56 mA load.

Every value is already stocked and 620k loses its only user: one FEWER unique
part, +2 placements.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-02 08:44:48 +00:00