Rockwell Automation 2711P Software Development Kit User Manual - Manual (Page 11)

Publication 2711P-UM005A-EN-P - March 2007
Introduction to the PanelView Plus CE Terminal 11
The external CF connector is controlled by a PCMCIA controller on
the PCI bus and is hot-pluggable and supports both 5V and 3.3V CF
devices. The external CF device is presented as the FAT volume
named “\Storage Card2”. The external connector is accessible via a
slot in the chassis and provides a convenient way to transport files
to/from the PanelView Plus CE device. Additionally, programs can be
run from the external CF device and it can extend the integral,
non-volatile storage areas of the system.
Boot ROM
The boot code resides in a 1Mbyte 82802AB Firmware Hub (FWH).
The code within the FWH is split into two sections. The first section is
referred to as the Basic Boot Code (BBC) and is 196Kbytes in size and
is not field programmable. The function of this code is to provide an
immutable code area for the initial start-up of the system. The second
section is referred to as the Extended Boot Code (EBC) and is
re-programmable. The EBC performs extended power-on self-testing
(POST), and initializes the system and readies it for the Win CE OS.
Much of the support for the manufacturing environment resides in the
EBC in the form of a Test Monitor.
Start-up is a sequential, and largely single-threaded operation. BBC
loads an existing or new EBC, and the EBC initializes the system and
loads an existing or new Win CE OS.
DRAM
The PanelView Plus CE device uses industry standard 3.3V, PC100/133
compliant, non-ECC, no-parity, dynamic RAM, packaged in a 144-pin
SO-DIMM. The DRAM comes in 64 MB, 128 MB, and 256 MB modules
and is field upgradable. The RAM provides a fast-access, volatile
storage space for data and program code during run-time.
The Win CE Operating System uses part of the RAM for a RAMDISK
and the other part for normal system memory. The RAMDISK portion
is commonly known as the Object Store and provides specialized
storage for the Windows CE Registry and Windows CE file system and
system databases. The Windows CE Control Panel System Properties
tool has a slider control that allows a user to determine how the RAM
is allocated between Storage and Program memory. The slider control
is factory set for a 50/50 split. Application programs can control RAM
allocation with the Windows CE system call SetSystemMemoryDivision
(see Microsoft’s documentation of the CE API for details).