Version History/Revision History

Intended Audience

Customer Support

Introduction

Features listed in the Features in This Release section below.
Reference documentation listed in the Related Documentation section below.
Installation instructions in the Get Started Guide.

Features in This Release

Time-Aware GPIO (TGPIO) samples demonstrate improved time precision of hardware-synchronized input/output versus standard software-driven GPIO.
The package includes buildable source code of the measurement library, cache allocation library, and real-time readiness checker.
New samples to demonstrate usage of the measurement library.

On Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors, the cache allocation library uses software SRAM infrastructure instead of Linux* resctrl. Resctrl support was removed from the cache allocation library.
The data streams optimizer is now available for 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors.
Installation package built using installer for Intel® oneAPI.
Updates to the setup process:
Separated the Yocto Project* layer with Intel® TCC Tools dependencies for board support package (BSP) build.
Intel® TCC Tools are installed over a running Yocto Project* OS instead of integrated into the OS during image build.
Yocto Project* cross-compile toolchain is not used anymore.
Created scripts to automate the setup of additional dependencies for host and target systems.

The real-time communication demo is not available in this release.

Fixed Issues

Cache allocation library limitations:
Cannot allocate in L2 and L3 cache simultaneously on Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors.
Only one application can work with the cache allocation library on Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors.
The current implementation of the library is not recommended for performance benchmarking, just for functional evaluation.
Applications using the measurement library may crash in cases when previous application execution finished unexpectedly while using the shared memory mode of the library.
Data streams optimizer: RTCP sample workload cannot be built using Yocto Project* toolchain. Build the sample workload on the target by using the provided Makefile.
Real-time readiness checker: In some cases, the real-time readiness checker may return NOT_RT_READY summary status even if all the checks have RT_READY status.

Known Issues

After using the
tcc_setup.py
script to install files on the target system, the
/usr/share/tcc_tools/tools
directory has only write permissions for
Group
and
Other
owners. You can only access the files in this folder with the account that was used to run the
tcc_setup.py
script.
Data streams optimizer:
In rare cases, the
tcc_data_streams_optimizer_preprod
tool may not be able to write files into the output directory. Change the umask to 0755 or set permission to output directory manually.
On 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors, a system hang may occur intermittently when running the
reboot
command. If the system detects hardware errors, the Functional Safety (FuSa) feature, PCIe Interrupt Error Handling (IEH), may attempt an additional system reset which can get stuck at postcode 0x0b7f. Perform a hard reset to regain control of the system. Temporary resolution for system hang after reboot: Disable IEH in the BIOS menu: Intel Advanced Menu/PCH-IO Configuration/IEH Mode = Bypass Mode.
In this release, ensure that RTCM is disabled before using the data streams optimizer for the first time and remains disabled afterward. If you enable RTCM and then disable RTCM after the data streams optimizer has tuned the system, the system may freeze or you may see the error: “Could not set up firmware update: Invalid argument. ERROR: Failed to apply buffer capsule”. If system freeze is encountered, hard reset to regain control of the system. In some cases, flashing the BIOS will be required in order to apply a new capsule. In the case of detecting the error: “Could not set up firmware update: Invalid argument. ERROR: Failed to apply buffer capsule,” reboot to disable RTCM.
Due to current firmware limitations on Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors, you may observe latency spikes of more than 10 microseconds for transactions passing through the processor. As a result, the performance evaluation of tuning configurations should be limited to a reduction in average latency until the updated firmware is applied.
Measurement library: Applications using the measurement library may not read all collected values from the shared memory.
Cache allocation:
The cache configurator and cache allocation library work incorrectly with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology enabled. The cache configurator may generate the wrong content for BIOS capsules. The resulting configuration may be different from expected or may cause unexpected system issues.
On 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors, Intel® VTune™ Profiler may cause a system hang during cache allocation sample measurement.
The cache allocation library may fail to allocate memory when the buffer_size_bytes value in
tcc.config
is increased between runs of the application calling cache allocation library.
On 11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors, the first BIOS capsule update after BIOS reflash may fail. This affects the data streams optimizer, cache configurator, cache allocation library, cache allocation sample, and system setup scripts. For additional details, see the troubleshooting sections for these components in the Developer Guide or Get Started Guide.
On Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors, Time-Aware GPIO samples do not work with hypervisor or RTCM enabled.
The cache allocation library and data streams optimizer cannot be used together.
This release fully supports 4-core processors. Support of 2-core processors is limited.
Certain features detect the processor model of the target system. These features may report errors when they detect preproduction processors that have CPUID 0000. If the real-time readiness checker reports NOT_RT_READY in this case, you can proceed with using Intel TCC Tools. If tcc_setup_ssram.sh reports an error, specify the platform in the command line. If cache configurator or data streams optimizer reports an error, specify the platform in the environment file.

Limitations

The cache configurator requires binary compatibility with real-time configuration data (RTCD) at the BIOS level. If a BIOS update changes the RTCD binary structure, it may cause issues with cache configurator. For a list of supported BIOS versions, see BIOS/Firmware Version.
If an application accesses the L2 software SRAM region and is subsequently migrated to a different core which does not share the same L2 cache, and continues to access the L2 software SRAM region, the performance of the software SRAM may diminish.

Related Documentation

Get Started Guide
Developer Guide

API reference:
/usr/share/tcc_tools/documentation/api/index.html
Sample sources:
/usr/share/tcc_tools/samples
Sample binaries:
/usr/bin

Where to Find the Release

Release Content

Hardware and Software Compatibility

11th Gen Intel® Core™ processors DDR4 customer reference board with a supported processor:
11th Gen Intel® Core™ i3-1115GRE
11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1145GRE
11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1185GRE
Intel Atom® x6000E Series processors reference validation platform with a supported processor:
Intel Atom® Processor x6200FE
Intel Atom® Processor x6212RE
Intel Atom® Processor x6414RE
Intel Atom® Processor x6425RE
Intel Atom® Processor x6427FE

Host: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Target: Yocto Project*-based board support package

Legal Information

Attributions

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
Neither the name of Intel Corporation nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.