DCF Overview

Device Configuration Format (DCF) tool has the same purpose as the DCD tool: to generate an image using the format and constraints specified in the Boot ROM reference manual. DCF tool is only specific for a limited set of processors.

The main difference between DCD and DCF tool is that the DCF tool does not create commands (write, check, nop), but uses records in order to set the values of a DCF client. DCF clients are 32-bit wide hardware registers inside a module that receive and store data from a DCF record. This stored data is used to initialize registers and configure features.

For some processors, the maximum size of DCF image is 5368 bytes.

A DCF record is a double-word (64-bit) entry that consists of the following:

• Control word—This provides information to locate the corresponding DCF client internal to the chip (pointer to the location of a register internal to the chip).
• Data word—This contains the data to be written to the DCF client.

DCF records select the target DCF client using a 30-bit field in the DCF record that consists of a 15-bit chip select field and a 15-bit address field. All modules that include DCF clients are assigned a chip select during chip definition. The address field is only relevant for address decoding within that module and may not necessarily relate to the address of a register that is visible to you.