Memory management

The RAM is a limiting resource and has to be managed to be used as efficiently as possible.

Static VS dynamic allocation

TBD

Static allocation

Static allocation of RAM memory happens when a variable is declared on a global scope (variables declared in a function will end up on the stack). The actual allocation is done by the linker by reserving space in the memory map in the appropriate location.

int myStaticallyAllocatedVariable;
static int myOtherStaticallyAllocatedVariable;

void aFunction() {
    int myVariableOnTheStack; // This ends up on the stack
    ...
}

Variables that are declared without an assignment will be set to zero at start up, while variables with an assignment will be initialized to that value. The values to use for initialized variables are stored in flash together with the code and is copied to RAM at start up.

int zeroInitialized;
int initializedWithAValue = 17;

RAM types

The MCU in the Crazyflie has two types of RAM, “normal” RAM and CCM (Core Coupled Memory). The CCM and normal ram are attached to different buses internally which gives them different properties. The most significant difference is that the CCM can not be used for DMA transfers, since the DMA unit does not have access to the bus used by CCM. The normal RAM can be used for all types of tasks and should be used for normal development, further more this is also the memory that will be used when writing “normal” code.

There is a fair amount of CCM in the system, and we want to use it to free up normal RAM. The over all strategy is to use CCM for system related memory chunks that we know will not be used for DMA, so that most users don’t have to care about the properties of CCM.

Using the CCM

Warning: Some drivers use DMA to communicate with sensors, it will not work to pass a pointer to CCM memory to such a driver.

There is a set of macros in static_mem.h that should be used to tell the compiler/linker to use the CCM. Note that only zero initialization is supported for CCM.

int variableInNormalRam;  // Initialized to 0
int alsoVariableInNormalRam = 17;  // Initialize to 17
NO_DMA_CCM_SAFE_ZERO_INIT int variableInCcm; // Initialized ot 0
NO_DMA_CCM_SAFE_ZERO_INIT int dontDoThisInCcm = 17; // WARNING! Will not work, will be initialized to 0! Will be silently accepted without warning.

Queues allocated with the STATIC_MEM_QUEUE_ALLOC macro will be allocated in the CCM, all access to queue memory is done by copy and is safe.

Tasks allocated using the STATIC_MEM_TASK_ALLOC macro will allocate the system buffers in CCM but the task stack in normal RAM. If no pointers to stack memory will be used for DMA transfers, it is possible to also allocate the stack in CCM by using the STATIC_MEM_TASK_ALLOC_STACK_NO_DMA_CCM_SAFE() macro instead.

Code that uses DMA through a public API should verify verify that pointers passed in through the API do not point to CCM. Use ASSERT_DMA_SAFE for this pupose to fail fast and indicate what the reason for the failued is.