CMPE 550 - COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE OF THE NINTENDO DS THOMAS FARRELL CONNOR PETILLI

AGENDA

• Background • Physical Dimensions • Technical Specifications • I/O Specifications • CPU Specifications • Memory Specifications • The Game Card • Additional Components • Wireless Communications •Sales Statistics

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BACKGROUND

• Announced by Nintendo on November 13th, 2003, and released on November 21st, 2004 in the US, and December 2nd, 2004 in Japan.

• Introduced as the Nintendo Dual Screen, shortly known under codename Nitro

• Released within the Seventh Generation of consoles, alongside the Nintendo Wii. Main competitor in handheld market was Sony’s Playstation Portable.

• Four models of the system were released throughout its lifetime: • The Nintendo DS Lite, a smaller version of the original DS hardware • The Nintendo DSi, inclusion of digital cameras, larger display, internal and external

content storage, and capable of downloading content • The Nintendo DSi XL, a larger version of the previous DSi model

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PHYSICAL DIMENSIONS

Dimensions 5.81 x 3.33 x 1.14 in 5.2 x 2.91 x 0.85 in 5.4 x 2.95 x 0.74 in 6.3 x 3.60 x 0.83 in

Device Mass 9.7 ounces 7.7 ounces 7.5 ounces 11.1 ounces

Display Size 3.0 in 3.12 in 3.25 in 4.2 in

Battery Life 6-10 hours battery life

15-19 hours @ lowest brightness setting

5-8 hours @ highest brightness setting

9-14 hours @ lowest brightness setting

3-4 hours @ highest brightness setting

13-17 hours @ lowest brightness setting

4-5 @ highest brightness setting

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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Dual LCD 256 x 192 px displays • 262,144 colors

• Resistive touchscreen • Two processors:

• Main processor: ARM946E-S, • Sub processor: ARM7TDMI

• Memory: • DS line: 4 MB SRAM • DSi line: 16 MB PSRAM

• Physical media: Nintendo DS Game Card • DS line only: Game Boy Advance Game Cartridge

• Rechargeable Lithium Ion Battery

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I/O • Inputs

• Buttons • Directional controller • Six Face Buttons • Two Shoulder Buttons

• Resistive Touch Screen • Microphone • Two 0.3 megapixel cameras

• DSi and DSi XL models only • Outputs

• Speakers • Internal Stereo • 16 Sound Channels

• Dual LCD display

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NINTENDO DSi PCB

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PRIMARY PROCESSOR

ARM946E-S • 67.028 MHz in DS and DS Lite models • 133 MHz in DSi and DSi XL models • Utilizes Harvard architecture, rather than von

Neumann • Five stage pipeline

• Instruction Fetch • Instruction Decode • Execute Shift and ALU • Memory Access and Multiply • Register Write

• ISA support for ARM (32-bit), Thumb (16-bit) • Compatible with ARM’s DSP extension

• 32-bit Data Bus between processing core and instruction/data caches

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PRIMARY PROCESSOR

ARM946E-S

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PRIMARY PROCESSOR

ARM946E-S (CONT.)

• Split cache (implementation for instructions and data), eight word line size

• 31 general-purpose registers • Register 15 = Program Counter • Register 14 = Return Address • Register 13 = Stack Pointer

• Current Program Status Register • Four ALU flags (Negative, Zero, Carry, Overflow) • Two interrupt disable bits • Bit to indicate ARM or Thumb execution • Five bits to encode processor mode

• Three Addressing modes • Not used in GBA Mode

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SECONDARY PROCESSOR

ARM7TDMI

• 32-bit RISC CPU • Utilizes Von Neumann architecture

• Single 32-bit data bus carrying both instructions and data

• Three stage instruction pipeline • Instruction Fetch • Instruction Decode • Execution

• Similar register set to that found in ARM946E-S • Utilizes both ARM and Thumb ISAs • 33 MHz (16 MHz in GBA Mode) • Cannot be used by developers • Only used in predefined API functions

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GAME CARD

• Proprietary ROM Cartridge used by the DS • Part Number NTR-005 • Used to store retail game data • Small in size (35 x 33 x 3.8 mm, 3.5 g) • 8 - 512 MB in capacity • Small amount of flash memory to store user data

• Infrared Support • Some games included infrared support, although system lacked appropriate hardware • Contained an infrared transceiver within the game card • Part Number NTR-031 • Cards are glossy, translucent • Infrared used to transfer data between pedometer peripherals, fast data transmission

between games

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MEMORY

• DS/Lite: 4 MB SRAM • DSi/DSiXL: 16 MB PSRAM • 256 MB Internal Storage

• DSi/DSiXL contained storage memory that could be expanded up to 32 GB using SD card slot

• 16 kB of both Instruction and Data Tightly-Coupled Memory • Used to store frequently used routines • Only accessible to the ARM9 processor

• 64 kB of Internal Working RAM • Only accessible by the ARM7 processor

• Two 16 kB banks of WRAM to be mapped to the memory space of either core • 656 kB of video RAM

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ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS

• Rumble Pak • Fits into the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS. • Allows a rumble feature to be used with select first party games.

• Memory expansion • Shipped with the DS Opera browser, the 8 MB Ram expansion pack fits into the

accessory slot of the Nintendo DS. It is mainly only used with the Opera browser as no games support the usage of additional RAM.

• DS Camera • Before the DSi, a separate face camera could be inserted into the GBA slot.

• Guitar Grip • Used for Guitar Hero: On Tour series of games, adds four “fret” buttons to the side of

the system. System is held vertically during play. • All additional components unusable on DSi systems, due to lack of GBA Slot.

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WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS

• DS/Lite: Integrated 802.11 wi-fi • DSi/DSiXL: Integrated 802.11b/g wi-fi

• Wi-Fi service included capability for multiplayer online play • Each individual game required a unique 12-digit “friend

code” to find and play with friends. • Online download store available on DSi systems • Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection discontinued May 20th, 2014

• DS/Lite models only compatible with WEP or unsecured networks

• DSi models allowed support for WPA and WPA secured networks, but only for DSi-exclusive features.

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SALES STATISTICS

• All models of the Nintendo DS combined sold 154.01 million units as of September 30th worldwide.

• Best selling game on the system: New Super Mario Bros., selling 30.79 million units

• Best selling handheld game console to date, second best video game console of all time.

• Succeeded by the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, but games were continued to be released for the system until late 2014.

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CONCLUSION

• The Nintendo DS is, undoubtedly, Nintendo’s most successful console to date • Wide array of software available to the system gave people of all ages incentive to

play. • Hardware and architecture within the system allowed for larger-scaled games and

software to be played on the portable system. • Dual-processor architecture allowed for backwards compatibility with large Game

Boy Advance library, as well as provide additional computational power. • Nintendo’s Wi-Fi connection demonstrated their first foray into the online

multiplayer and connectivity market • The DSi’s ability to purchase downloadable content from an online store served as a

“prototype” to Nintendo’s current online “eShop”.

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REFERENCES

Image sources: • http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/3685/nintendo-dsi-handheld-game-console-teardown • http://www.embeddedinsights.com/epd/Diagrams/arm-arm946e-s.jpg • http://www.embeddedinsights.com/epd/Diagrams/arm-arm7tdmi-arm7tdmi-s.jpg • http://nds.jpn.org/images/P1270180.png • https://www.arm.com/assets/images/pro-A7TDMI.gif • http://www.arm.com/assets/images/proc-A968E-s.gif • http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--plFz_vMW--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/18yilp991raj1png.png

Data Sources:

• http://www.it.uom.gr/teaching/embedded/material/support.inf.uth.gr_courses_CE536/Related_Documents/5%20Reduced%20Instruction%20Set%20Computing%20(RISC)%20machines%20and%20the%20ARM%20processor/ARM946ES.pdf

• http://neuromancer.io/ds-net/ • http://www.it.uom.gr/teaching/embedded/material/support.inf.uth.gr_courses_CE536/Related_Documents/5%20Reduced%20Instruction%20Set%20Computing

%20(RISC)%20machines%20and%20the%20ARM%20processor/ARM946ES.pdf • http://www.engadget.com/products/nintendo/dsi/xl/specs/ • http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm • http://www.atmel.com/images/ddi0029g_7tdmi_r3_trm.pdf

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