Open source software for FAT file system over MMC SDChttp://dev.emcelettronica.com/print/519641 din 330.09.2008 21:52

Your Electronics Open Source

(http://dev.emcelettronica.com)

Home > Blog > allankliu's blog > Contenuti

Open source software for FAT file systemover MMC SDC

By allankliuCreated 09/16/2008 - 10:48

Embedded arm avr fat file system microcontroller mmc sdc Open source software sdcOpen source software (OSS) is defined as computer software.The demand of MMC/SDC integration drives the market and open source communities. Nowwe can find some useful open source projects for MMC/SDC libraries for embeddedapplications, not only for Linux, but also for deep embedded applications. Recently Iinvestigated and tried to design a low-cost picture/video surveillance device with some cheapmicrocontrollers like ATmega, MSP430, Cortex-M3 and ARM7TDMI. These microcontrollersdeliver more connectivity capabilities including USB, UART/IrDA, SPI/SSP/SDIO and I2C insmaller size and much lower price. It is very natural for me to design a low cost DC with PIRactivation feature in security surveillance. The surveillance device captures the image fromthe camera and stores it into a SD card. Therefore, FAT file system over MMC/SDC is veryessential for this application.

Open Source ProjectsEFSL (Embedded Filesystem Library)

This OSS project runs on PC (GNU/Linux, development environment), TMS C6000 DSP fromTI, and ATmega from Atmel (see the Datasheet). In general, more memory will increase theperformance. The EFSL requires as little as 1.5KB RAM, so low-end microcontroller canbenefit from this feature. Martin Thomas, the maintainer of WinARM, has ported EFSL toAtmel and NXP ARM7TDMI chip. It is good for me, since I finally decided to use the cheapestLPC2103 for my low cost surveillance device.The project contains a user manual for system integration. The source code is alsoself-explained. It is easy to be ported to other architectures.

FF/TFF (FatFile and TinyFatFile)

FF/TFF is maintained by Mr. ChanN, a Japanese electronics Engineer. The project has beenported and tested on AVR (ATmega64, 8bit RISC), H8/300H (Renesas HD64F3694, 16bitCISC), PIC (PIC24FJ64GA002, 16bit RISC), TLCS (Toshiba TMP86FM29, 8bit CISC),V850ES (NEC uPD70F3716, 32bit RISC) on MMC/SD, CF and ATA HDD.The sample projects include functional test of FatFs/TinyFatFs module with low level disk I/Ocodes. You are able to find various implementations on the web other than these sampleprojects, such as: SH2, LPC2000, STR7, MSP430, PIC and Z8.

Open source software for FAT file system over MMC SDChttp://dev.emcelettronica.com/print/51964din 330.09.2008 21:52

For most applications, such as portable audio and data logger, TinyFatFs is the best choice.However TinyFatFs does not support FAT32 by default, and has a limitation of handling smallstorage up to 2GB. The FAT32 support can be added by _USE_FAT32 option with anadditional code size. The FatFs is suitable for fast multiple files access and for multiple drivesystem.Besides, I highly recommend reading the application note of FF/TFF, in case you have issueson abstraction of file object, efficient sector buffer management, long file name of Microsoft,and porting issues for RTOS.

Commercial PackageuC/FS

uC/FS is an optional component of uC/OS-II. Its source is open, but it is a commercialproduct. You can download the demo version for ATA/Smart Media from its web. Or You canport low level drivers of SD cards to replace the Smart media card driver of the demo version.

Dependency

The file system has module dependency of hardware I/O access and RTC. For MMC/SD andmost of the microcontrollers, SPI mode will be selected as hardware layer protocol, and PIOmode will be selected for CF/ATA HDD. The LPC2368/78 and STM32F103XXXX haveintegrated the faster standard SDIO port, which offers four times performance of SPI mode.RTC is important for file writing routines, of course the RTC can be simulated by a generalpurpose timer in the microcontroller. However LPC2000 and some Cortex-M3microcontrollers come out of the shelf with a RTC on board.

FAT File System Module (FatFs/TinyFatFs) by ChanN EFSL, Embedded Filesystem Library