--- /dev/null
+================================================================================
+Useful notes on bulding and using of U-Boot on ARC EM Development Kit (AKA EMDK)
+================================================================================
+
+ BOARD OVERVIEW
+
+ The DesignWare ARC EM Development Kit is FPGA-bases platform for rapid
+ software development on the ARC EM family of processors.
+
+ Since this board is based on FPGA it's possible to load and use different
+ versions of ARC EM CPUs. U-Boot is built to be run on the simplest
+ possible configuration which means the same one binary will work on more
+ advanced configurations as well.
+
+ The board has the following features useful for U-Boot:
+ * On-board 2-channel FTDI TTL-to-USB converter
+ - The first channel is used for serial debug port (which makes it possible
+ to use a serial connection on pretty much any host machine be it
+ Windows, Linux or Mac).
+ On Linux machine typucally FTDI serial port would be /dev/ttyUSB0.
+ There's no HW flow-control and baud-rate is 115200.
+
+ - The second channel is used for built-in Digilent USB JTAG probe.
+ That means no extra hardware is required to access ARC core from a
+ debugger on development host. Both proprietary MetaWare debugger and
+ open source OpenOCD + GDB client are supported.
+
+ - Also with help of this FTDI chip it is possible to reset entire
+ board with help of a special `rff-ftdi-reset` utility, see:
+ https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/rff-ftdi-reset
+
+ * Micro SD-card slot
+ - U-Boot expects to see the very first partition on the card formatted as
+ FAT file-system and uses it for keeping its environment in `uboot.env`
+ file. Note uboot.env is not just a text file but it is auto-generated
+ file created by U-Boot on invocation of `saveenv` command.
+ It contains a checksum which makes this saved environment invalid in
+ case of maual modification.
+
+ - There might be more useful files on that first FAT partition like
+ user applications, data files etc.
+
+ * 256 KiB of "ROM"
+ - This so-called "ROM" is a part of FPGA image and even though it
+ might be unlocked for writes its initial content will be restored
+ on the next power-on.
+
+
+ BUILDING U-BOOT
+
+ 1. Configure U-Boot:
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+ make emdk_defconfig
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+
+ 2. To build Elf file (for example to be used with host debugger via JTAG
+ connection to the target board):
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+ make mdbtrick
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+
+ This will produce `u-boot` Elf file.
+
+ 3. To build binary image to be put in "ROM":
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+ make u-boot.bin
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+
+
+ EXECUTING U-BOOT
+
+ 1. The EMDK board is supposed to auto-start U-Boot image stored in ROM on
+ power-on. For that make sure VCCIO DIP-switches are all in "off" state.
+
+ 2. Though it is possible to load U-Boot as a simple Elf file via JTAG right
+ in "ROM" and start it from the debugger. One important note here we first
+ need to enable writes into "ROM" by writing 1 to 0xf0001000.
+
+ 2.1. In case of proprietary MetaWare debugger run:
+ ------------------------->8----------------------
+ mdb -dll=opxdarc.so -OK -preloadexec="eval *(int*)0xf0001000=0" u-boot
+ ------------------------->8----------------------