difference or meaning between "PROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE" and "Firmware" part of the cell board

[Md. Minhaz Khan]

Dear All
I have query:" when i give sysrem command it shows firmware version.

[uninitialized] MP:CM> sysrev



Cabinet firmware revision report



PROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE :



System Backplane : GPM FM OSP





------- ------- -------



1.003 1.002 1.002





PCI-X Backplane : LPM HS





------- -------





2.000 1.000



Core IO : Master Slave



-------- -------



2.011 0.000



LPM PDHC



------- -------



Cell 0 : 1.002 1.010



Cell 1 : 1.002 1.010



FIRMWARE:



Core IO



Master : A.007.008



Event Dict. : 1.015



Slave : A.000.000 - not installed



Event Dict. : 0.000



Cell 0



PDHC : A.003.031



Pri SFW : 24.004 (PA)



Sec SFW : 3.096 (IA)



Cell 1



PDHC : A.003.031



Pri SFW : 24.004 (PA)



Sec SFW : 3.096 (IA)

I want to what is the difference or meaning between "PROGRAMMABLE HARDWARE" and "Firmware" part of the cell board.

I am a novice in the HP minicomputer world.

[Stefan Stechemesser · Accepted solution]

Hi,

it is always good to specify the system type you want information for. From the firmware revisions I would guess you have a rp7420 HP9000 server which is a midrange HP9000 server.

"Firmware" is running on a microprocessor (loaded from a flash rom) and contains a set of instructions in processor dependent code.
f.e. the "Pri SFW : 24.004 (PA)" is the firmware running on the PA processors, or the "Master : A.007.008" is running on the microprocessor of the Management Processor (also called Core I/O).

"Programmable Hardware" is simply a chip with programmable behaviour (FPGA, field programmable gate array) which is for example the power monitor on the cells (LPM) and backplane (GPM) and other chips.

Sometimes new hardware features make it nessecary to update those FPGAs, too in addition to firmware updates.
And only the correct combination of FPGA revision and firmware is supported on a midrange HP9000 server.

best regards

Stefan

[Md. Minhaz Khan]

Dear Friend

Thanks a lot to help me.I think when you are at my stage i mean when you start learning about HP-minicomputer on that time you have to read lots of documents. So please give me a document about cell board different components and which components need wiich firmware for example LPM is for power monitor or Pri SFW for Processors running etc.........

[cnb]

rp7420 documents can be found here:

http://docs.hp.com/en/hw.html#HP%209000%20rp7420%20Server

Suggest you start with the User Service Guide and User Guide for the Service Processor.

rp7420 Quickspecs:
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11895_div/11895_div.HTML

Firmware release notes may contain some of the information you're looking for:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=2512350&swItem=pf-53620-2&prodNameId=392498&swEnvOID=7&swLang=13&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=1

Rgds,