1 Booting U-Boot on a MXS processor
2 =================================
4 This document describes the MXS U-Boot port. This document mostly covers topics
5 related to making the module/board bootable.
10 The term "MXS" refers to a family of Freescale SoCs that is composed by MX23
13 The dollar symbol ($) introduces a snipped of shell code. This shall be typed
14 into the unix command prompt in U-Boot source code root directory.
16 The (=>) introduces a snipped of code that should by typed into U-Boot command
23 2) Compiling U-Boot for a MXS based board
24 3) Installation of U-Boot for a MXS based board to SD card
25 4) Installation of U-Boot into NAND flash on a MX28 based board
26 5) Installation of U-Boot into SPI NOR flash on a MX28 based board
31 To make a MXS based board bootable, some tools are necessary. The only
32 mandatory tool is the "mxsboot" tool found in U-Boot source tree. The
33 tool is built automatically when compiling U-Boot for i.MX23 or i.MX28.
35 The production of BootStream image is handled via "mkimage", which is
36 also part of the U-Boot source tree. The "mkimage" requires OpenSSL
37 development libraries to be installed. In case of Debian and derivates,
38 this is installed by running:
40 $ sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
42 NOTE: The "elftosb" tool distributed by Freescale Semiconductor is no
43 longer necessary for general use of U-Boot on i.MX23 and i.MX28.
44 The mkimage supports generation of BootStream images encrypted
45 with a zero key, which is the vast majority of use-cases. In
46 case you do need to produce image encrypted with non-zero key
47 or other special features, please use the "elftosb" tool,
48 otherwise continue to section 2). The installation procedure of
49 the "elftosb" is outlined below:
51 Firstly, obtain the elftosb archive from the following location:
53 ftp://ftp.denx.de/pub/tools/elftosb-10.12.01.tar.gz
55 We use a $VER variable here to denote the current version. At the time of
56 writing of this document, that is "10.12.01". To obtain the file from command
60 $ wget ftp://ftp.denx.de/pub/tools/elftosb-${VER}.tar.gz
64 $ tar xzf elftosb-${VER}.tar.gz
66 Compile the file. We need to manually tell the linker to use also libm:
69 $ make LIBS="-lstdc++ -lm" elftosb
71 Optionally, remove debugging symbols from elftosb:
73 $ strip bld/linux/elftosb
75 Finally, install the "elftosb" binary. The "install" target is missing, so just
76 copy the binary by hand:
78 $ sudo cp bld/linux/elftosb /usr/local/bin/
80 Make sure the "elftosb" binary can be found in your $PATH, in this case this
81 means "/usr/local/bin/" has to be in your $PATH.
83 2) Compiling U-Boot for a MXS based board
84 -------------------------------------------
86 Compiling the U-Boot for a MXS board is straightforward and done as compiling
87 U-Boot for any other ARM device. For cross-compiler setup, please refer to
88 ELDK5.0 documentation. First, clean up the source code:
92 Next, configure U-Boot for a MXS based board
94 $ make <mxs_based_board_name>_config
98 1. For building U-Boot for Denx M28EVK board:
102 2. For building U-Boot for Freescale MX28EVK board:
104 $ make mx28evk_config
106 3. For building U-Boot for Freescale MX23EVK board:
108 $ make mx23evk_config
110 4. For building U-Boot for Olimex MX23 Olinuxino board:
112 $ make mx23_olinuxino_config
114 Lastly, compile U-Boot and prepare a "BootStream". The "BootStream" is a special
115 type of file, which MXS CPUs can boot. This is handled by the following
120 HINT: To speed-up the build process, you can add -j<N>, where N is number of
121 compiler instances that'll run in parallel.
123 The code produces "u-boot.sb" file. This file needs to be augmented with a
124 proper header to allow successful boot from SD or NAND. Adding the header is
125 discussed in the following chapters.
127 NOTE: The process that produces u-boot.sb uses the mkimage to generate the
128 BootStream. The BootStream is encrypted with zero key. In case you need
129 some special features of the BootStream and plan on using the "elftosb"
130 tool instead, the invocation to produce a compatible BootStream with the
131 one produced by mkimage is outlined below. For further details, refer to
132 the documentation bundled with the "elftosb" package.
134 $ elftosb -zf imx23 -c arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-imx23.bd \
136 $ elftosb -zf imx28 -c arch/arm/cpu/arm926ejs/mxs/u-boot-imx28.bd \
139 3) Installation of U-Boot for a MXS based board to SD card
140 ----------------------------------------------------------
142 To boot a MXS based board from SD, set the boot mode DIP switches according to
143 to MX28 manual, section 12.2.1 (Table 12-2) or MX23 manual, section 35.1.2
146 The SD card used to boot U-Boot must contain a DOS partition table, which in
147 turn carries a partition of special type and which contains a special header.
148 The rest of partitions in the DOS partition table can be used by the user.
150 To prepare such partition, use your favourite partitioning tool. The partition
151 must have the following parameters:
153 * Start sector .......... sector 2048
154 * Partition size ........ at least 1024 kb
155 * Partition type ........ 0x53 (sometimes "OnTrack DM6 Aux3")
157 For example in Linux fdisk, the sequence for a clear card follows. Be sure to
158 run fdisk with the option "-u=sectors" to set units to sectors:
160 * o ..................... create a clear partition table
161 * n ..................... create new partition
162 * p ............. primary partition
163 * 1 ............. first partition
164 * 2048 .......... first sector is 2048
165 * +1M ........... make the partition 1Mb big
166 * t 1 ................... change first partition ID
167 * 53 ............ change the ID to 0x53 (OnTrack DM6 Aux3)
168 * <create other partitions>
169 * w ..................... write partition table to disk
171 The partition layout is ready, next the special partition must be filled with
172 proper contents. The contents is generated by running the following command
175 $ ./tools/mxsboot sd u-boot.sb u-boot.sd
177 The resulting file, "u-boot.sd", shall then be written to the partition. In this
178 case, we assume the first partition of the SD card is /dev/mmcblk0p1:
180 $ dd if=u-boot.sd of=/dev/mmcblk0p1
182 Last step is to insert the card into the MXS based board and boot.
184 NOTE: If the user needs to adjust the start sector, the "mxsboot" tool contains
185 a "-p" switch for that purpose. The "-p" switch takes the sector number as
188 4) Installation of U-Boot into NAND flash on a MX28 based board
189 ---------------------------------------------------------------
191 To boot a MX28 based board from NAND, set the boot mode DIP switches according
192 to MX28 manual section 12.2.1 (Table 12-2), PORT=GPMI, NAND 1.8 V.
194 There are two possibilities when preparing an image writable to NAND flash.
196 I) The NAND wasn't written at all yet or the BCB is broken
197 ----------------------------------------------------------
198 In this case, both BCB (FCB and DBBT) and firmware needs to be
199 written to NAND. To generate NAND image containing all these,
200 there is a tool called "mxsboot" in the "tools/" directory. The tool
201 is invoked on "u-boot.sb" file from chapter 2):
203 $ ./tools/mxsboot nand u-boot.sb u-boot.nand
205 NOTE: The above invokation works for NAND flash with geometry of
206 2048b per page, 64b OOB data, 128kb erase size. If your chip
207 has a different geometry, please use:
209 -w <size> change page size (default 2048 b)
210 -o <size> change oob size (default 64 b)
211 -e <size> change erase size (default 131072 b)
213 The geometry information can be obtained from running U-Boot
214 on the MX28 board by issuing the "nand info" command.
216 The resulting file, "u-boot.nand" can be written directly to NAND
217 from the U-Boot prompt. To simplify the process, the U-Boot default
218 environment contains script "update_nand_full" to update the system.
220 This script expects a working TFTP server containing the file
221 "u-boot.nand" in it's root directory. This can be changed by
222 adjusting the "update_nand_full_filename" variable.
224 To update the system, run the following in U-Boot prompt:
226 => run update_nand_full
228 In case you would only need to update the bootloader in future,
231 II) The NAND was already written with a good BCB
232 ------------------------------------------------
233 This part applies after the part I) above was done at least once.
235 If part I) above was done correctly already, there is no need to
236 write the FCB and DBBT parts of NAND again. It's possible to upgrade
237 only the bootloader image.
239 To simplify the process of firmware update, the U-Boot default
240 environment contains script "update_nand_firmware" to update only
241 the firmware, without rewriting FCB and DBBT.
243 This script expects a working TFTP server containing the file
244 "u-boot.sb" in it's root directory. This can be changed by
245 adjusting the "update_nand_firmware_filename" variable.
247 To update the system, run the following in U-Boot prompt:
249 => run update_nand_firmware
251 III) Special settings for the update scripts
252 --------------------------------------------
253 There is a slight possibility of the user wanting to adjust the
254 STRIDE and COUNT options of the NAND boot. For description of these,
255 see MX28 manual section 12.12.1.2 and 12.12.1.3.
257 The update scripts take this possibility into account. In case the
258 user changes STRIDE by blowing fuses, the user also has to change
259 "update_nand_stride" variable. In case the user changes COUNT by
260 blowing fuses, the user also has to change "update_nand_count"
261 variable for the update scripts to work correctly.
263 In case the user needs to boot a firmware image bigger than 1Mb, the
264 user has to adjust the "update_nand_firmware_maxsz" variable for the
265 update scripts to work properly.
267 5) Installation of U-Boot into SPI NOR flash on a MX28 based board
268 ------------------------------------------------------------------
270 The u-boot.sb file can be directly written to SPI NOR from U-Boot prompt.
272 Load u-boot.sb into RAM, this can be done in several ways and one way is to use
274 => tftp u-boot.sb 0x42000000
276 Probe the SPI NOR flash:
279 (SPI NOR should be succesfully detected in this step)
281 Erase the blocks where U-Boot binary will be written to:
282 => sf erase 0x0 0x80000
284 Write u-boot.sb to SPI NOR:
285 => sf write 0x42000000 0 0x80000
287 Power off the board and set the boot mode DIP switches to boot from the SPI NOR
288 according to MX28 manual section 12.2.1 (Table 12-2)
290 Last step is to power up the board and U-Boot should start from SPI NOR.