Introduction Cross-developmental environment for Hitachi H8 microprocessor family
Last updated 2001-08-14 6:32 pm
Introduction
To create an executable file for target CPUs, we need assembler, compiler, library, and linker. GNU provides powerful tool set, binutils (binary utilities) and gcc, which can generate object codes targetting diverse CPUs. GNU also presents a C library (glibc), but it is so huge and not suitable for embedding systems. So, I recommend yout to utilize newlib instead of glibc. In addition, there is a nice and sophisticated debugger, gdb, for helping software development (surprisingly, gdb simulates H8 processor!).
In the following section, I'll introduce a method to create cross-development tools for hitachi H8 microprocessor. Hitachi H8 family is one of the major CPUs being carried with PDAs and small computers (the famous PDA, Cybiko embarks H8S/2246). The core of H8 family is H8/300H series and there are usefult kits for evaluation. Recently, Hitachi announced low cost evaluation development kits (EDK), which comes with a development board and software (99 USD). Akizuki electronic merchant has been sold a famous kit, AKI-H8, in Japan (7800 JPY). These H8/300H based CPU boards are inexpensive (less than 100 USD) and would be the best teaching materials for students and newbie engineers.
Goal
Prepare a cross-development platform for H8/300H CPU using the latest versions of binutils, gcc, newlib, and gdb.
Getting source codes
binutils (GNU)
- binutils homepage
- FTP on CodeFactory (CodeFactory well maintains GNU tools, I love it.)
Anonymous CVS
# cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.cygnus.com:/cvs/src login ( enter "anoncvs" as the password ) # cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.cygnus.com:/cvs/src co binutils ( the latest source tree will be expanded in ../src ) # ls src COPYING README-maintainer-mode configure intl ltmain.sh mpw-config.in COPYING.LIB bfd configure.in ld makefile.vms mpw-configure COPYING.NEWLIB binutils etc libiberty missing mpw-install CVS config gas libtool.m4 mkdep opcodes ChangeLog config-ml.in gettext.m4 ltcf-c.sh mkinstalldirs setup.com MAINTAINERS config.guess gprof ltcf-cxx.sh move-if-change symlink-tree Makefile.in config.if include ltcf-gcj.sh mpw-README texinfo README config.sub install-sh ltconfig mpw-build.in ylwrap
- gcc homepage
- FTP on CodeFactory (RELEASES)
- FTP on CodeFactory (SNAPSHOTS)
Anonymous CVS
# cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@gcc.gnu.org:/cvs/gcc login ( enter "anoncvs" as the password ) # cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@gcc.gnu.org:/cvs/gcc co gcc ( the latest source tree will be expanded in ../gcc ) # ls gcc COPYING README configure install-sh libobjc ltconfig symlink-tree COPYING.LIB boehm-gc configure.in libchill libstdc++ ltmain.sh texinfo CVS config contrib libf2c libstdc++-v3 maintainer-scripts xiberty ChangeLog config-ml.in etc libffi libtool.m4 missing ylwrap INSTALL config.guess fastjar libiberty ltcf-c.sh mkdep zlib MAINTAINERS config.if gcc libio ltcf-cxx.sh mkinstalldirs Makefile.in config.sub include libjava ltcf-gcj.sh move-if-change
Anonymous CVS
# cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.cygnus.com:/cvs/src login ( enter "anoncvs" as the password ) # cvs -z 9 -d :pserver:anoncvs@anoncvs.cygnus.com:/cvs/src co newlib ( the latest source tree will be expanded in ../src/newlib ) # ls src/newlib COPYING README configure ltcf-c.sh mkdep mpw-install COPYING.LIB README-maintainer-mode configure.in ltcf-cxx.sh mkinstalldirs newlib COPYING.NEWLIB config etc ltcf-gcj.sh move-if-change setup.com CVS config-ml.in gettext.m4 ltconfig mpw-README symlink-tree ChangeLog config.guess install-sh ltmain.sh mpw-build.in texinfo MAINTAINERS config.if libgloss makefile.vms mpw-config.in ylwrap Makefile.in config.sub libtool.m4 missing mpw-configure
Cross-making
I expanded the source trees in /usr/src as follows.
- binutils /usr/src/cvs-binutils/src/
- gcc /usr/src/cvs-gcc/gcc/
- newlib /usr/src/cvs-newlib/src/
- gdb /usr/src/gdb-5.0/src
And I created links to them for easy-typing.
18:36:31 root@mebius /usr/src # ls -l binutils gcc newlib gdb lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Aug 7 18:36 binutils -> cvs-binutils/src lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Aug 7 18:36 gcc -> cvs-gcc/gcc lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Aug 7 18:36 gdb -> gdb-5.0/src lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Aug 7 18:36 newlib -> cvs-newlib/srcFirst of all, we have to build up binutils since gcc calls archiver, linker, and assembler.
All of GNU compliant tools are initially configured by "configure script" and it aytomatically creates a Makefile optimised for the host environment. There are two essential configure options, --target and --prefix.
- --target
- --prefix
--target specifies CPUs for output codes and --prefix tells make where the binaries, man files, headers, and libraries will be installed. The abbrebiation of Hitachi H8/300H processor is "h8300-hms" (hms means Hitachi Microprocessor Systems; GNU family currently supports many platforms). I assigned /usr/local/h8 to --prefix and executable files will be installed in /usr/local/h8/bin/.
NOTICE: You should perform builds in a directory out of the source tree. In this case, you can create multiple binaries (H8/300H, x86, MIPS, ARM, and so on) using single source directory.
NOTICE: CFLAGS is defined as "-g -O2" in original Makefile, and the "-g" option force the executable files to be enlarged so much. You can ignore this option by inserting CFLAGS="-O2" in make command line.
Now, it's time to make. After several minutes (4 mins in case of Celeron 300MHz), make completes successfully. Lastly, do not forget to update PATH environment variable, because gcc calls cross-compiled binutils tools in next step (if you forget it, gcc complains "h8300-hms-ar is not found").
$ mkdir /usr/local/h8 $ cd /usr/src/h8 $ mkdir build-binutils $ cd build-binutils $ /usr/src/binutils/configure --target=h8300-hms --prefix=/usr/local/h8 $ make CFLAGS="-O2" all $ su # make install $ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/h8/binThere should be newly created 17 tools in /usr/local/h8/bin/ directory. All of executable file names are prefixed with target name.
19:26:33 root@mebius /usr/src/h8/build-binutils # ls -l /usr/local/h8 total 5 drwxrwxr-x 8 root root 200 Aug 7 19:26 . drwxr-xr-x 19 root staff 464 Aug 7 19:26 .. drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 656 Aug 7 19:26 bin drwxrwxr-x 4 root root 96 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 136 Aug 7 19:26 include drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 200 Aug 7 19:26 lib drwxrwxr-x 3 root root 72 Aug 7 19:26 man drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 48 Aug 7 19:26 share 19:27:21 root@mebius /usr/src/h8/build-binutils # ls -l /usr/local/h8/bin total 3654 drwxrwxr-x 2 root root 656 Aug 7 19:26 . drwxrwxr-x 8 root root 200 Aug 7 19:26 .. -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 204642 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-addr2line -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 177830 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-ar -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 361754 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-as -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 61992 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-c++filt -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 159355 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-coffdump -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 50852 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-gasp -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 347184 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-ld -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 215351 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-nm -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 348455 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-objcopy -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 411607 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-objdump -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 177829 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-ranlib -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 162244 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-readelf -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 154559 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-size -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 176041 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-srconv -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 153259 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-strings -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 348454 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-strip -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 193882 Aug 7 19:26 h8300-hms-sysdumpNext target is gcc-3.x. There are three additional configure options you should consult.
- --enable-languages
- --with-newlib
- --with-headers
Default Makefile produces codes for C++, JAVA, Fortran77, and Chill in addtion to ANSI C. Since almost of us do not need these optional languages, let's ignore them by using --enable-languages option (C is essential and we can not exclude it).
glibc is too huge and complex for small systems, so we have to choice another compact C library. newlib is one of the most hard-tested library, and gcc can be adopted for it by --with-newlib option. In this case, you have to specify --with-headers option. gcc itself creates libgcc.a and libiberty.a libraries, and standard include files are required for their compilation. Standard headers files for newlib are collected in its source tree (newlib/libc/include/).
NOTICE: --with-headers option is very important one for cross-making. Do not forget it!
As described above, we should ignore "-g" option (CFLAGS="-O2") and limit supporting languages to C and C++ (LANGUAGES="c c++"). Be careful, please specify LANGUAGES option in both of "make" and "make install". Celeron 300MHz took about 14 mins for completion.
Now, you will find 4 addtional files including gccbug, h8300-hms-c++, h8300-hms-cpp, and h8300-hms-g++.
--target-help tells you target-specific gcc options. -mh option generates codes for H8/300H processor.
Ok, now we are ready to cross-compile newlib package. The procedure is just same as binutils. Celeron 300MHz took about 8 mins for the job.
Five kinds of libraries (different data length) are installed in /usr/local/h8/h8300-hms/lib/. C Run Time start up file crt0.o and linker scripts are also provided.
Let's enjoy with the cross-tools. h8300-hms-gcc and h8300-hms-as really output native H8/300 code. Congratulations!
21:38:03 root@mebius /usr/src/h8 # cat test.c int main() { int a,b; a = 2; b = 123; a *= b; return(a); } 21:38:40 root@mebius /usr/src/h8 # h8300-hms-gcc test.c 21:38:47 root@mebius /usr/src/h8 # h8300-hms-gcc -S test.c 21:39:11 root@mebius /usr/src/h8 # ls -l total 25 drwxrwxr-x 5 root root 248 Aug 7 21:39 . drwxr-xr-x 69 root root 2984 Aug 7 18:42 .. -rwxrwxr-x 1 root root 2752 Aug 7 21:36 a.out drwxrwxr-x 12 root root 392 Aug 7 19:20 build-binutils drwxrwxr-x 7 root root 304 Aug 7 19:35 build-gcc drwxrwxr-x 5 root root 216 Aug 7 21:17 build-newlib -rw------- 1 root root 65 Aug 7 21:36 test.c -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 461 Aug 7 21:39 test.s 21:39:12 root@mebius /usr/src/h8 # cat test.s ; GCC For the Hitachi H8/300 ; By Hitachi America Ltd and Cygnus Support .file "test.c" .section .text .align 1 .global _main _main: push r6 mov.w r7,r6 subs #2,sp subs #2,sp mov.w #2,r2 mov.w r2,@(-2,r6) mov.w #123,r2 mov.w r2,@(-4,r6) mov.w @(-4,r6),r1 mov.w @(-2,r6),r0 jsr @___mulhi3 mov.w r0,r2 mov.w r2,@(-2,r6) mov.w @(-2,r6),r2 mov.w r2,r0 adds #2,sp adds #2,sp pop r6 rts .end .ident "GCC: (GNU) 3.1 20010806 (experimental)"Lastly, we construct gdb package. h8300-hms-gdb and h8300-hms-run will be newly installed in /usr/local/h8/bin/. Celeron 300MHz took about 5 mins.
Now, all the players gathered in our system.