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authorSam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org>2019-01-06 19:18:08 +0100
committerSascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de>2019-01-08 16:40:57 +0100
commit2008b1feccebe61c4d57aa3d55ac57c49a8ec179 (patch)
treeb5ca8671e472db105674b54963311a1a235b5be5 /Documentation
parent682e63e0bae09e17992727f6341ba72e36c5caa8 (diff)
downloadbarebox-2008b1feccebe61c4d57aa3d55ac57c49a8ec179.tar.gz
barebox-2008b1feccebe61c4d57aa3d55ac57c49a8ec179.tar.xz
doc: at91sam9263-ek: add notes
Add notes from working on bootstrap support Signed-off-by: Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> Signed-off-by: Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@pengutronix.de>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/boards/at91/microchip-at91sam9263-ek.rst122
1 files changed, 122 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/boards/at91/microchip-at91sam9263-ek.rst b/Documentation/boards/at91/microchip-at91sam9263-ek.rst
index 74ddb3cdb6..8022cdd678 100644
--- a/Documentation/boards/at91/microchip-at91sam9263-ek.rst
+++ b/Documentation/boards/at91/microchip-at91sam9263-ek.rst
@@ -8,3 +8,125 @@ Building barebox:
.. code-block:: sh
make ARCH=arm at91sam9263ek_defconfig
+
+Notes while working on at91sam9263ek bootstrap support
+
+The at91sam9263 have support for a boot program,
+like the other members in the Atmel at91 series.
+
+The boot program (ROMBOOT) will try to load the
+boot program from DataFlash, SD Card, NAND Flash and USB
+
+SD Card is the first to try.
+It looks for a file named BOOT.BIN in the first
+partition in a FAT16/32 filesystem.
+
+To generate the SD Card image I used genimage:
+(https://github.com/pengutronix/genimage)
+Onle 2 GB SD card works, 4 GB did not work. ROMBOOT do not
+support high capacity SD cards.
+
+Configuration file:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ image boot.vfat {
+ name = "boot"
+ vfat {
+ /*
+ * RomBOOT in the at91sam9263 does not recognize
+ * the default FAT partition created by mkdosfs.
+ * -n BOOT - Set volume label to "BOOT"
+ * -F 16 - Force the partition to FAT 16
+ * -D 0 - Set drive number to 0
+ * -R 1 -a - Reserve only one sector
+ * The combination of "-D 0" AND "-R 1 -a"
+ * is required with mkdosfs version 4.1
+ */
+ extraargs = "-n BOOT -F 16 -D 0 -R 1 -a"
+ file BOOT.BIN { image = "barebox.bin" } // barebox.bin from root of barebox dir
+ file barebox.bin { image = "barebox-at91sam9263ek.img" }
+ file zImage { image = "zImage" }
+ }
+
+ size = 16M
+ }
+
+ image rootfs.ext4 {
+ ext4 {
+ label = "root"
+ }
+ mountpoint = "/"
+ size = 1500M
+ }
+
+ image SD {
+ hdimage {}
+
+ partition boot {
+ partition-type = 0xc
+ bootable = "true"
+ image = "boot.vfat"
+ }
+
+ partition root {
+ image = "rootfs.ext4"
+ partition-type = 0x83
+ }
+
+ }
+
+ROMBOOT will load the BOOT.BIN file to internal SRAM that
+starts at 0x300000. Maximum size 0x12000 (72 KiB).
+When loaded ROMBOOT will remap like this:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ 0x00000000 0x00000000
+ Internal ROM => Internal SRAM
+
+ 0x00300000 0x00400000
+ Internal SRAM => Internal ROM
+
+It is not documented but assumed that ROMBOOT uses the
+MMU to remap the addresses.
+There seems not to be a dedicated remapping feature that is used.
+
+Note: For DataFlash and NAND Flash the image is validated.
+The first 28 bytes must be valid load PC or PC relative addressing.
+Vector 0x6 must include the size of the image (in bytes).
+This validation is (according to datasheet) not done for SD Card boots.
+
+barebox related notes when trying to make it work with PBL enabled
+
+To let barebox detect the SD card early use: CONFIG_MCI_STARTUP=y
+
+When PBL (and MULTI_IMAGE) are enabled then barebox creates
+a binary with the following structure:
+
+.. code-block:: none
+
+ +----------------------+
+ | PBL (PreBootLoader) |
+ +----------------------+
+ | piggy.o |
+ |+--------------------+|
+ ||barebox second stage||
+ |+--------------------+|
+ +----------------------+
+
+The PBL contains code from the sections .text_head_entry*, .text_bare_init* and .text*
+
+``.text_head_entry*:``
+This is the reset vector and exception vectors. Must be the very first in the file
+
+``.text_bare_init*:``
+Everything in this section, and , is checked at link time.
+Size most be less than BAREBOX_MAX_BARE_INIT_SIZE / ARCH_BAREBOX_MAX_BARE_INIT_SIZE
+
+at91 specify the size of the two sections in exception vector 6 (see above),
+if CONFIG_AT91_LOAD_BAREBOX_SRAM is defined.
+I think this is because some at91 variants have only very limited SRAM size,
+and we copy only a minimal part to the SRAM. The remaining part is then
+executed in-place.
+For at91sam9263 we have a large SRAM so there is room for the full bootstrap binary.