Enabling UART1 on AM18X/DA850/OMAP-L138 running Linux

About this page

This page describes steps to enable and verify the UART1/ttyS1 on AM18x/DA850/OAMP-L138 EVMs running linux.

Enabling UART1

• Merge below series patches if your kernel is prior to PSP release 03.21.00.04.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

• Build kernel by following steps specified in below user guide link.

Rebuilding the Linux kernel

• As UART1 lines on EVM are not available on DB9 connector, user should have custom card on J30 audio expander slot(ref:EVM figure) to connect UART1 lines to DB9.

Enabling flow control on UART1

• Since AHCLKX and AHCLKR pins of McASP are muxed with CTS and RTS of UART1 respectively, UART1 flowcontrol and audio cannot be enabled simultaneously.
• For enabling UART1 flow control make sure to enable flow control by selecting CONFIG_DAVINCI_UART1_AFE and disable McASP by deselecting CONFIG_SND_DA850_SOC_EVM options from menuconfig as shown below.

Select UART1 flow control

System Type --->
    <*> TI DaVinci Implementations --->
             <*> DA850/OMAP-L138/AM18x based system
             <*> Enable UART1 flow control

Disable Audio

Device Drivers --->
    <*> Sound card support --->
        <*> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture --->
            <*> ALSA for SoC audio support --->
                <*> SoC Audio for the TI DAVINCI chip
                  < > SoC Audio support for DA850/OMAP-L138/AM18xx EVM

• Make sure that AUDIO_EXP_SEL is driven high by turning S7-2(ref:EVM figure) switch ON, otherwise the UART1_CTS signal will have contention with the AIC_MCLK clock signal(i.e. Flow control will be non-functional).

Verification

• UART1 can be verified by connecting 2 EVMs back to back on UART1 using custom made connectors as shown in below figure.

• UART1 port of 2 EVMs are connected using single stranded green wires as shown in above figure and connection are made as shown below:

1. Connect UART1_RTS of EVM1 to UART1_CTS of EVM2
2. Connect UART1_CTS of EVM1 to UART1_RTS of EVM2
3. Connect UART1_TX of EVM1 to UART1_RX of EVM2
4. Connect UART1_RX of EVM1 to UART1_TX of EVM2

target1$ cat /dev/ttyS1
target2$ echo <enter_text> > /dev/ttyS1

• Should receive entered text on target1. Above steps can be repeated after enabling flow control.

• UART1 can also be verified on single EVM by doing external loopback connection as below:

1. Short RTS-CTS lines of UART1.
2. Short TX-RX lines of UART1.

• Write to and read from /dev/ttyS1 from an application. The test is passed if you read back what you written.
• Above test can be rerun after enabling flow control.