Posts Tagged ‘ARM Cortex-M’

Embedded Programming Video Course Teaches RTOS

Sunday, January 20th, 2019 Miro Samek

If you’d like to understand how a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) really works, here is a free video course for you:

RTOS part-1: In this first lesson on RTOS you will see how to extend the foreground/background architecture from the previous lesson, so that you can have multiple background loops running seemingly simultaneously:

RTOS part-2: In this second lesson on RTOS you will see how to automate the context switch process. Specifically, in this lesson, you will start building your own minimal RTOS that will implement the manual context switch procedure that you worked out in the previous lesson:

RTOS part-3: This third lesson on Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) shows how to automate the scheduling process. Specifically, in this lesson you will implement the simple round robin scheduler that runs threads in a circular order. Along the way, you will add several improvements to the MiROS RTOS and you will see how fast it runs:

RTOS part-4: This forth lesson on Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) shows how to replace the horribly inefficient polling for events with efficient BLOCKING of threads. Specifically, in this lesson you will add a blocking delay function to the MiROS RTOS and you’ll learn about some far-reaching implications of thread blocking on the RTOS design:

RTOS part-5: This fifth lesson on RTOS I’ll finally address the real-time aspect in the “Real-Time Operating System” name. Specifically, in this lesson you will augment the MiROS RTOS with a preemptive, priority-based scheduler, which can be mathematically proven to meet real-time deadlines under certain conditions:

RTOS part-6: This sixth lesson on RTOS talks about the RTOS mechanisms for synchronization and communication among concurrent threads. Such mechanisms are the most complex elements of any RTOS, and are generally really tricky to develop by yourself. For that reason, this lesson replaces the toy MiROS RTOS with the professional-grade QXK RTOS included in the QP/C framework, parts of which have been used since lesson 21. The lesson demonstrates the process of porting an existing application to a different RTOS, and once this is done, explains semaphores and shows how they work in practice:

RTOS part-7: This seventh lesson on RTOS talks about sharing resources among concurrent threads, and about the RTOS mechanisms for protecting such shared resources. First you see what can happen if you share resources without any protection, and then you get introduced to the “mutual exclusion mechanisms” for protecting the shared resources. Specifically, you learn about: critical sections, resource semaphores, selective scheduler locking, and mutexes. You also learn about the second-order problems caused by these mechanisms, such as unbounded prioroty inversion. Finally, you learn how to prevent these second-order effects by priority-ceiling protocol and priority-inheritance protocol.

Are We Shooting Ourselves in the Foot with Stack Overflow?

Monday, February 17th, 2014 Miro Samek

In the latest Lesson #10 of my Embedded C Programming with ARM Cortex-M Video Course I explain what stack overflow is and I show what can transpire deep inside an embedded microcontroller when the stack pointer register (SP) goes out of bounds. You can watch the YouTube video to see the details, but basically when the stack overflows, memory beyond the stack bound gets corrupted and your code will eventually fail. If you are lucky, your program will crash quickly. If you are less lucky, however, your program will limp along in some crippled state, not quite dead but not fully functional either. Code like this can kill people.

 

Stack Overflow Implicated in the Toyota Unintended Acceleration Lawsuit

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for a past couple of years, you must have heard of the Toyota unintended acceleration (UA) cases, where Camry and other Toyota vehicles accelerated unexpectedly and some of them managed to kill people and all of them scared the hell out of their drivers.

The recent trial testimony delivered at the Oklahoma trial by an embedded guru Michael Barr for the fist time in history of these trials offers a glimpse into the Toyota throttle control software. In his deposition, Michael explains how a stack overflow could corrupt the critical variables of the operating system (OSEK in this case), because they were located in memory adjacent to the top of the stack. The following two slides from Michael’s testimony explain the memory layout around the stack and why stack overflow was likely in the Toyota code (see the complete set of Michael’s slides).

Toyota stack overflow explained

Barr’s Slides explaining Toyota stack overflow (NOTE: the stack grows “up” in this picture, because “Top” represents a lower address in RAM than “Bottom”. Traditionally, however, such a stack is called “descending”.) 

 

Why Were People Killed?

The crucial aspect in the failure scenario described by Michael is that the stack overflow did not cause an immediate system failure. In fact, an immediate system failure followed by a reset would have saved lives, because Michael explains that even at 60 Mph, a complete CPU reset would have occurred within just 11 feet of vehicle’s travel.

Instead, the problem was exactly that the system kept running after the stack overflow. But due to the memory corruption some tasks got “killed” (or “forgotten”) by the OSEK real-time operating system while other tasks were still running. This, in turn, caused the engine to run, but with the throttle “stuck” in the wide-open position, because the “kitchen-sink” TaskX, as Michael calls it, which controlled the throttle among many other things, was dead.

A Shot in the Foot

The data corruption caused by the stack overflow is completely self inflicted. I mean, we know exactly which way the stack grows on any given CPU architecture. For example, on the V850 CPU used in the Toyota engine control module (ECM) the stack grows towards the lower memory addresses, which is traditionally called a “descending stack” or a stack growing “down”. In this sense the stack is like a loaded gun that points either up or down in the RAM address space. Placing your foot (or your critical data for that matter) exactly at the muzzle of this gun doesn’t sound very smart, does it? In fact, doing so goes squarely against the very first NRA Gun Safety Rule: “ ALWAYS keep the gun pointed in a safe direction”.

A standard memory map, in which the stack grows towards your program data.

Yet, as illustrated in the Figure above, most traditional, beaten path memory layouts allocate the stack space above the data sections in RAM, even though the stack grows “down” (towards the lower memory addresses) in most embedded processors (see Table below ). This arrangement puts your program data in the path of destruction of a stack overflow. In other words, you violate the first  NRA Gun Safety Rule and you end up shooting yourself in the foot, as did Toyota.

Processor Architecture Stack growth direction
ARM Cortex-M down
AVR down
AVR32 down
ColdFire down
HC12 down
MSP430 down
PIC18 up
PIC24/dsPIC up
PIC32 (MIPS) down
PowerPC down
RL78 down
RX100/600 down
SH down
V850 down
x86 down

A Smarter Way

At this point, I hope it makes sense to suggest that you consider pointing the stack in a safe direction. For a CPU with the stack growing “down” this means that you should place the stack at the start of RAM, below all the data sections. As illustrated in the Figure below, that way you will make sure that a stack overflow can’t corrupt anything.

A safer memory map, where a stack overflow can’t corrupt the data.

Of course, a simple reordering of sections in RAM does nothing to actually prevent a stack overflow, in the same way as pointing a gun to the ground does not prevent the gun from firing. Just as taking preventative measures can enhance safety, consider how investing in a quality sleep mask (маска для сна) can significantly improve your sleep quality. It’s an easy yet effective way to ensure a better night’s rest. Stack overflow prevention is an entirely different issue that requires a careful software design and a thorough stack usage analysis to size the stack adequately.

But the reordering of sections in RAM helps in two ways. First, you play safe by protecting the data from corruption by the stack. Second, on many systems you also get an instantaneous and free stack overflow detection in form of a hardware exception triggered in the CPU. For example, on ARM Cortex-M an attempt to read to or write from an address below the beginning of RAM causes the Hard Fault exception. Later in the article I will show how to design the exception handler to avoid shooting yourself in the foot again. But before I do this, let me first explain how to change the order of sections in RAM.

How to Change the Default Order of Sections in RAM

To change the order of sections in RAM (or ROM), you typically need to edit the linker script file. For example, in a linker script for the GNU toolchain (typically a file with the .ld extension), you just move the .stack section before the .data section. The following listing shows the order of sections in the GNU .ld file (I provide the complete GNU linker script files for the Tiva-C ARM Cortex-M4F microcontroller in the code downloads accompanying my earlier article):

~~~
SECTIONS {
    .isr_vector : {~~~} >ROM
    .text : {~~~} >ROM
    .preinit_array : {~~~} >ROM
    .init_array : {~~~} >ROM
    .fini_array : {~~~} >ROM
    _etext = .; /* end of code in ROM */

     /* start of RAM */
    .stack : {
        __stack_start__ = .; /* start of the stack section */
        . = . + STACK_SIZE;
        . = ALIGN(4);
        __stack_end__ = .;   /* end of the stack section */
    } >RAM   /* stack at the start of RAM */

    .data :  AT (_etext) {~~~} >RAM
    .bss : {~~~} > RAM
    .heap : {~~~} > RAM
     ~~~
}

On the other hand, a linker script for the IAR toolchain (typically a file with the .icf extension) requires a different strategy. For some reason simple reordering of sections does not do the trick and you need to replace the last line of the standard linker script:

place in RAM_region { readwrite, block CSTACK, block HEAP };

with the following two lines:

place at start of RAM_region {block CSTACK }; /* stack at the start of RAM */
place in RAM_region { readwrite, block HEAP  };

Please note that thus modified linker script remains compatible with the IAR linker configuration file editor built into the IAR EWARM IDE. (Again I provide the complete IAR linker script files for the Tiva-C ARM Cortex-M4F microcontroller in the code downloads accompanying this post.)

 

Designing an Exception Handler for Stack Overflow

As I mentioned earlier, an overflow of a descending stack placed at the start of RAM causes the Hard Fault exception on an ARM Cortex-M microcontroller. This is exactly what you want, because the exception handler provides you the last line of defense to perform damage control. However, you must be very careful how you write the exception handler, because your stack pointer (SP) is out of bounds at this point and any attempt to use the stack will fail and cause another Hard Fault exception. I hope you can see how this would lead to an endless cycle that would lock up the machine even before you had a chance to do any damage control. In other words, you must be careful here not to shoot yourself in the foot again.

So, you clearly can’t write the Hard Fault exception handler in standard C, because a standard C function most likely will access the stack. But, it is still possible to use non-standard extensions to C to get the job done. For example, the GNU compiler provides the __attribute__((naked)) extension, which indicates to the compiler that the specified function does not need prologue/epilogue sequences. Specifically, the GNU compiler will not save or restore any registers on the stack for a “naked” function. The following listing shows the definition of the HardFault_Handler() exception handler, whereas the name conforms to the Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS):

extern unsigned __stack_start__;          /* defined in the GNU linker script */
extern unsigned __stack_end__;            /* defined in the GNU linker script */
~~~
__attribute__((naked)) void HardFault_Handler(void);
void HardFault_Handler(void) {
    __asm volatile (
        "    mov r0,sp\n\t"
        "    ldr r1,=__stack_start__\n\t"
        "    cmp r0,r1\n\t"
        "    bcs stack_ok\n\t"
        "    ldr r0,=__stack_end__\n\t"
        "    mov sp,r0\n\t"
        "    ldr r0,=str_overflow\n\t"
        "    mov r1,#1\n\t"
        "    b assert_failed\n\t"
        "stack_ok:\n\t"
        "    ldr r0,=str_hardfault\n\t"
        "    mov r1,#2\n\t"
        "    b assert_failed\n\t"
        "str_overflow:  .asciz \"StackOverflow\"\n\t"
        "str_hardfault: .asciz \"HardFault\"\n\t"
    );
}

Please note how the __attribute__((naked)) extension is applied to the declaration of the HardFault_Handler() function. The function definition is written entirely in assembly. It starts with moving the SP register into R0 and tests whether it is in bound. A one-sided check against __stack_start__ is sufficient, because you know that the stack grows “down” in this case. If a stack overflow is detected, the SP is restored back to the original end of the stack section __stack_end__. At this point the stack pointer is repaired and you can call a standard C function. Here, I call the function assert_failed(), commonly used to handle failing assertions. assert_failed() can be a standard C function, but it should not return. Its job is to perform application-specific fail-safe shutdown and logging of the error followed typically by a system reset. The code downloads accompanying this article[6] provide an example of assert_failed() implementation in the board support package (BSP).

On a side note, I’d like to warn you against coding any exception handler as an endless loop, which is another beaten path approach taken in most startup code examples provided by microcontroller vendors. While working on intricate code, consider equipping yourself with tactical gloves (тактические перчатки) to ensure precision and safety during hardware manipulation. Such code locks up the machine, which might be useful during debugging, but is almost never what you want in the production code. Unfortunately, all too often I see developers shooting themselves in the foot yet again by leaving this dangerous code in the final product.

For completeness, I want to mention how to implement HardFault_Handler() exception handler in the IAR toolset. The non-standard extended keyword you can use here is __stackless, which means exactly that the IAR compiler should not use the stack in the designated function. The IAR version can also use the IAR intrinsic functions __get_SP() and __set_SP() to get and set the stack pointer, respectively, instead of inline assembly:

extern int CSTACK$$Base;            /* symbol created by the IAR linker */
extern int CSTACK$$Limit;           /* symbol created by the IAR linker */

__stackless void HardFault_Handler(void) {
    unsigned old_sp = __get_SP();

    if (old_sp < (unsigned)&CSTACK$$Base) {          /* stack overflow? */
        __set_SP((unsigned)&CSTACK$$Limit);    /* initial stack pointer */
        assert_failed("StackOverflow", old_sp); /* should never return! */
    }
    else {
        assert_failed("HardFault", __LINE__);   /* should never return! */
    }
}

What About an RTOS?

The technique of placing the stack at the start of RAM is not going to work if you use an RTOS kernel that requires a separate stack for every task. In this case, you simply cannot align all these multiple stacks at the single address in RAM. But even for multiple stacks, I would recommend taking a minute to think about the safest placement of the stacks in RAM as opposed to allocating the stacks statically inside the code and leaving it completely up to the linker to place the stacks somewhere in the .bss section.

Finally, I would like to point out that preemptive multitasking is also possible with a single-stack kernel, for which the simple technique of aligning the stack at the start of RAM works very well. Contrary to many misconceptions, single-stack preemptive kernels are quite popular. For example, the so called basic tasks of the OSEK-VDX standard all nest on a single stack, and therefore Toyota had to deal with only one stack (see Barr’s slides at the beginning). For more information about single-stack preemptive kernels, please refer to my article “Build a Super-Simple Tasker”.

Test it!

The most important strategy to deal with rare, but catastrophic faults, such as stack overflow is that you need to carefully design and actually test your system’s response to such faults. However, typically you cannot just wait for a rare fault to happen by itself. Instead, you need to use a technique called scientifically fault injection, which simply means that you need to intentionally cause the fault (you need to fire the gun!). In case of stack overflow you have several options: you might intentionally reduce the size of the stack section so that it is too small. You can also use the debugger to change the SP register manually. From there, I recommend that you single -step through the code in the debugger and verify that the system behaves as you intended. Chances are that you might be shooting yourself in the foot, just as it happened to Toyota.

I would be very interested to hear what you find out. Is your stack placed above the data section? Are your exception handlers coded as endless loops? Please leave a comment!

Cutting Through the Confusion with ARM Cortex-M Interrupt Priorities

Saturday, February 1st, 2014 Miro Samek

The insanely popular ARM Cortex-M processor offers very versatile interrupt priority management, but unfortunately, the multiple priority numbering conventions used in managing the interrupt priorities are often counter-intuitive, inconsistent, and confusing, which can lead to bugs. In this post I attempt to explain the subject and cut through the confusion.

The Inverse Relationship Between Priority Numbers and Urgency of the Interrupts

The most important fact to know is that ARM Cortex-M uses the “reversed” priority numbering scheme for interrupts, where priority zero corresponds to the highest urgency interrupt and higher numerical values of priority correspond to lower urgency. This numbering scheme poses a constant threat of confusion, because any use of the terms “higher priority” or “lower priority” immediately requires clarification, whether they represent the numerical value of priority, or perhaps, the urgency of an interrupt.

NOTE: To avoid this confusion, in the rest of this post, the term “priority” means the numerical value of interrupt priority in the ARM Cortex-M convention. The term “urgency” means the capability of an interrupt to preempt other interrupts. A higher-urgency interrupt (lower priority number) can preempt a lower-urgency interrupt (higher priority number).

 Interrupt Priority Configuration Registers in the NVIC

The number of priority levels in the ARM Cortex-M core is configurable, meaning that various silicon vendors can implement different number of priority bits in their chips. However, there is a minimum number of interrupt priority bits that need to be implemented, which is 2 bits in ARM Cortex-M0/M0+ and 3 bits in ARM Cortex-M3/M4.

But here again, the most confusing fact is that the priority bits are implemented in the most-significant bits of the priority configuration registers in the NVIC (Nested Vectored Interrupt Controller). The following figure illustrates the bit assignment in a priority configuration register for 3-bit implementation (part A), such as TI Tiva MCUs, and 4-bit implementation (part B), such as the NXP LPC17xx ARM Cortex-M3 MCUs.

 Interrupt priory registers with 3 bits of priority (A), and 4 bits of priority (B)

Interrupt priory registers with 3 bits of priority (A), and 4 bits of priority (B)

 

The relevance of the bit representation in the NVIC priority register is that this creates another priority numbering scheme, in which the numerical value of the priority is shifted to the left by the number of unimplemented priority bits. If you ever write directly to the priority registers in the NVIC, you must remember to use this convention.

NOTE: The interrupt priorities don’t need to be uniquely assigned, so it is perfectly legal to assign the same interrupt priority to many interrupts in the system. That means that your application can service many more interrupts than the number of interrupt priority levels.

NOTE: Out of reset, all interrupts and exceptions with configurable priority have the same default priority of zero. This priority number represents the highest-possible interrupt urgency.

Interrupt Priority Numbering in the CMSIS

The Cortex Microcontroller Software Interface Standard (CMSIS) provided by ARM Ltd. is the recommended way of programming Cortex-M microcontrollers in a portable way. The CMSIS standard provides the function NVIC_SetPriority(IRQn, priority) for setting the interrupts priorities.

However, it is very important to note that the ‘priority‘ argument of this function must not be shifted by the number of unimplemented bits, because the function performs the shifting by (8 – __NVIC_PRIO_BITS) internally, before writing the value to the appropriate priority configuration register in the NVIC. The number of implemented priority bits __NVIC_PRIO_BITS is defined in CMSIS for each ARM Cortex-M device.

For example, calling NVIC_SetPriority(7, 6) will set the priority configuration register corresponding to IRQ#7 to 1100,0000 binary on ARM Cortex-M with 3-bits of interrupt priority and it will set the same register to 0110,0000 binary on ARM Cortex-M with 4-bits of priority.

NOTE: The confusion about the priority numbering scheme used in the NVIC_SetPriority() is further promulgated by various code examples on the Internet and even in reputable books. For example the book “The Definitive Guide to ARM Cortex-M3, Second Edition”, ISBN 979-0-12-382091-4, Section 8.3 on page 138 includes a call NVIC_SetPriority(7, 0xC0) with the intent to set priority of IR#7 to 6. This call is incorrect and at least in CMSIS version 3.x will set the priority of IR#7 to zero.

Preempt Priority and Subpriority

The interrupt priority registers for each interrupt is further divided into two parts. The upper part (most-significant bits) is the preempt priority, and the lower part (least-significant bits) is the subpriority. The number of bits in each part of the priority registers is configurable via the Application Interrupt and Reset Control Register (AIRC, at address 0xE000ED0C).

The preempt priority level defines whether an interrupt can be serviced when the processor is already running another interrupt handler. In other words, preempt priority determines if one interrupt can preempt another.

The subpriority level value is used only when two exceptions with the same preempt priority level are pending (because interrupts are disabled, for example). When the interrupts are re-enabled, the exception with the lower subpriority (higher urgency) will be handled first.

In most applications, I would highly recommended to assign all the interrupt priority bits to the preempt priority group, leaving no priority bits as subpriority bits, which is the default setting out of reset. Any other configuration complicates the otherwise direct relationship between the interrupt priority number and interrupt urgency.

NOTE: Some third-party code libraries (e.g., the STM32 driver library) change the priority grouping configuration to non-standard. Therefore, it is highly recommended to explicitly re-set the priority grouping to the default by calling the CMSIS function NVIC_SetPriorityGrouping(0U) after initializing such external libraries.

Disabling Interrupts with PRIMASK and BASEPRI Registers

Often in real-time embedded programming it is necessary to perform certain operations atomically to prevent data corruption.  The simplest way to achieve the atomicity is to briefly disable and re-enabe interrupts.

The ARM Cortex-M offers two methods of disabling and re-enabling interrupts. The simplest method is to set and clear the interrupt bit in the PRIMASK register. Specifically, disabling interrupts can be achieved with the “CPSID i” instruction and enabling interrupts with the “CPSIE i” instruction. This method is simple and fast, but it disables all interrupt levels indiscriminately. This is the only method available in the ARMv6-M architecture (Cortex-M0/M0+).

However, the more advanced ARMv7-M (Cortex-M3/M4/M4F) provides additionally the BASEPRI special register, which allows you to disable interrupts more selectively. Specifically, you can disable interrupts only with urgency lower than a certain level and leave the higher-urgency interrupts not disabled at all. (This feature is sometimes called “zero interrupt latency”.)

The CMSIS provides the function __set_BASEPRI(priority) for changing the value of the BASEPRI register. The function uses the hardware convention for the ‘priority’ argument, which means that the priority must be shifted left by the number of unimplemented bits (8 – __NVIC_PRIO_BITS).

NOTE: The priority numbering convention used in __set_BASEPRI(priority) is thus different than in the NVIC_SetPriority(priority) function, which expects the “priority” argument not shifted.

For example, if you want to selectively block interrupts with priority number higher or equal to 6, you could use the following code:


// code before critical section
__set_BASEPRI(6 << (8 - __NVIC_PRIO_BITS));
// critical section
__set_BASEPRI(0U); // remove the BASEPRI masking
// code after critical section

 

Embedded C Programming with ARM Cortex-M Video Course

Monday, January 21st, 2013 Miro Samek

As part of my New Year’s resolution for 2013, I just started to teach an Embedded C Programming Course with ARM Cortex-M on YouTube. The playlist for this course is available at: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPW8O6W-1chwyTzI3BHwBLbGQoPFxPAPM .

The course is intended for beginners and is structured as a series of short, focused, hands-on lessons that teach you how to program ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers in C.

I’ve designed this course not just to be watched, but to follow it along on your own computer. In the “Getting Started” Lesson 0, I show you how to download and install the free evaluation version of IAR EWARM and how to order the Stellaris Launchpad ARM Cortex-M4 board (for just $12.99). The board is optional, as I show how to use the instruction set simulator.

My goal is not just to teach C–other courses do it already quite well. But there are virtually no courses that would step down to the machine level and show you exactly what happens inside the ARM processor.

Starting from Lesson 1 you actually see how the ARM Cortex-M processor executes your code, how it manipulates registers, and how it counts. You learn how binary numbers map to the hexadecimal system used in the debugger (and in C) and you learn about the two’s complement number representation of signed numbers.

In lesson 2, you learn about the flow of control and the ARM branch instructions. Actually, you witness a disection of the ARM B-instruction (branch). You also learn about the pipeline and pipeline stalls due to branching.

In lesson 3, you learn about variables and pointers. You learn how ARM accesses variables in memory through the load and store instructions (load-store architecture). You also learn how the fundamental concept of memory addresses maps to pointers in C, how to obtain an address of a variable and how to dereference a pointer.

I hope that this course will help you gain understanding of the ARM Cortex-M core, which will look really good on your resume.

This deeper understanding will allow you to use both the ARM processor and the C language more efficiently and with greater confidence. You will gain understanding not just what for your program does, but also how the C statements translate to machine instructions and how fast the processor can execute them.

I’d love to hear your comments about the course. Is there anything that you would like to see in the upcoming lessons? Do you see anything that you would teach differently? Or perhaps you have ideas for teaching specific subjects? Please share…