Difference between revisions of "Hardware/Starlet"
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Hallowizer (talk | contribs) (Removed speculation; we have legitimate ways of knowing this is called the IOP. That name was mentioned in the 25c3 presentation, seen in some factory logs dumped on HackMii, and seen as some of the Hollywood register names (HW_IOPINTPPC)) |
Hallowizer (talk | contribs) (Added what IOP stands for, since the Starbuck on the Wii U is also known as IOP according to Wikipedia, and Wikipedia states that IOP is short for Input/Output Processor) |
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| − | The [[Hollywood]] includes an ARM9 core to handle I/O and security, nicknamed the '''Starlet''' by [[fail0verflow]], but internally known as the '''IOP'''. | + | The [[Hollywood]] includes an ARM9 core to handle I/O and security, nicknamed the '''Starlet''' by [[fail0verflow]], but internally known as the '''IOP''', short for Input/Output Processor. |
This is a very interesting piece of hardware, as it basically does everything that makes a Wii different from a GameCube. | This is a very interesting piece of hardware, as it basically does everything that makes a Wii different from a GameCube. | ||
Revision as of 01:11, 1 May 2021
The Hollywood includes an ARM9 core to handle I/O and security, nicknamed the Starlet by fail0verflow, but internally known as the IOP, short for Input/Output Processor. This is a very interesting piece of hardware, as it basically does everything that makes a Wii different from a GameCube.
Note: this page is incomplete. Please expand it as you see fit!
Specs
- NEC ARM926EJ-S SoC. See also ChipWorks.
- Big endian for compatibility with the Broadway
- ARM and thumb instruction set
- Clocked at 243MHz (Hollywood clock)
Boot
- See also: boot process
Starlet is the first processor to run code in the Wii.
- Starlet boots from an internal Mask ROM, BOOT0 (about 1300 bytes of code out of 4K possible)
- boot0 decrypts, verifies, and runs the first few blocks of NAND, BOOT1 (up to the first 48 pages of flash)
- boot1 locates, loads, decrypts, verifies, and runs BOOT2
- boot2 bootstrap then loads the embedded ELF file
- boot2 starts the IOS
- IOS loads code into the EXI buffer and bootstraps the Broadway
Links
More information about the Starlet:
- ARM926EJ-S Technical Reference Manual - CPU, MMU, Cache specs and programmer's interface
- ARM9EJ-S Technical Reference Manual - CPU specs and programmer's interface
- ARM Architecture Reference Manual - Documentation about the ARMv5 architecture.
- IOS - the OS that runs on the Starlet and handles calls from the Broadway during game execution and while in the system menu.
- ARM Binaries - the formats used for Starlet executable code
- WAD Files are used for BOOT2 and the IOS