BSP Developer's Guide

4
Hardware Guidelines
4.1 Introduction
VxWorks runs on many architectures and targets from a wide variety of vendors,
including custom and embedded hardware, VMEbus, Multibus, and PCIbus
single-board computers, and workstation and PC mother boards. VxWorks can
also boot from many different UNIX and Windows hosts using a variety of
communication media.
With the number of combinations that have been configured, Wind River has
gathered sufficient experience to make recommendations in board design to best
suit the VxWorks run-time environment. However, this document should not be
used to determine the desirability of potential or existing ports. Many
considerations essential to such determinations, such as cost analysis, time to
market, and power and cooling requirements, are beyond the scope of this
document.
This chapter enumerates run-time functional requirements, distills features of
important run-time components, and warns against potential pitfalls. The primary
objective of this chapter is to assist developers in selecting appropriate boards and
components for VxWorks operation. The following issues are discussed in this
chapter:
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architectural considerations
memory
bus
devices
The particulars of how an individual architecture implements these considerations
are discussed in the VxWorks Architecture Supplement document for each
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