This document describes a sophisticated approach to building applications comprised of separate programs booted into an ADSP-218x DSP as needed, controlled by a boot manager. It details how to use the VisualDSP++ Loader/Splitter utility (elfspl21.exe) to generate boot streams from executable files for 8-bit EPROM or Flash devices.
The text covers the General Bootstrap Procedure involving a preloader and page loader, explaining how BDMA transfers instructions into internal SRAM. It also discusses differences between VisualDSP++ versions 2.0 and 3.0 regarding off-chip memory support and provides steps for simulating the boot procedure using the VisualDSP++ debugger.
The preloader sets up another BDMA sequence that loads additional loader code from byte address 0x0060 to PM address 0x0020.
The default preloader contains exactly 32 instructions.
The VisualDSP++ splitter features an additional switch called –bdmaload file.dxe offset.