NAND flash support for Xilinx Zynq in U-Boot SPL
Overview
- Target board: Elphel 10393 (Xilinx Zynq 7Z030) with 1GB NAND flash
- U-Boot final image files (both support NAND flash commands):
- boot.bin – SPL image – loaded by Xilinx Zynq BootROM into OCM, no FSBL required
- u-boot-dtb.img – full image – loaded by boot.bin into RAM
- Build environment and dependencies (for details see this article) :
- Yocto poky
- mainstream U-Boot v2016.01
- Xilinx Zynq NAND flash driver (drivers/mtd/nand/zynq_nand.c) from u-boot-xlnx
- Ezynq
The story
First of all, Ezynq was updated to use the mainstream U-Boot to remove an extra agent (u-boot-xlnx) from the dependency chain. But since the flash driver for Xilinx Zynq hasn’t make it to the mainstream yet it was copied to Ezynq’s source tree for U-Boot. When building the source tree is copied over U-Boot source files. We will make a patch someday.
Full image (u-boot-dtb.img)
Next, the support for flash and commands was added to the board configuration for the full u-boot image. Required defines:
include/configs/elphel393.h (from zynq-common.h in u-boot-xlnx):
#define CONFIG_NAND_ZYNQ
#ifdef CONFIG_NAND_ZYNQ
#define CONFIG_CMD_NAND_LOCK_UNLOCK /*zynq driver doesn't have lock/unlock commands*/
#define CONFIG_SYS_MAX_NAND_DEVICE 1
#define CONFIG_SYS_NAND_SELF_INIT
#define CONFIG_SYS_NAND_ONFI_DETECTION
#define CONFIG_MTD_DEVICE
#endif
#define CONFIG_MTD
NOTE: original Zynq NAND flash driver for U-Boot (zynq_nand.c) doesn’t have Lock/Unlock commands. Same applies to pl35x_nand.c in the kernel they provide. By design, on power on the NAND flash chip on 10393 is locked (write protected). While these commands were added to both drivers there’s no need for unlock in U-Boot as all of the writing will be performed from OS boot from either flash or micro SD card. Out there some designs with NAND flash do not have flash locked on power on.
And configs/elphel393_defconfig:
CONFIG_CMD_NAND=y
There are few more small modifications to add the driver to the build – see ezynq/u-boot-tree. Anyways, it worked on the board. Easy. Type “nand” in u-boot terminal for available commands.
SPL image (boot.bin)
Then the changes for the SPL image were made.
Currently U-Boot runs twice to build both images. For the SPL run it sets CONFIG_SPL_BUILD, the results are found in spl/ folder. So, in general, if one would like to build U-Boot with SPL supporting NAND flash for some other board he/she should check out common/spl/spl_nand.c for the required functions, they are:
nand_spl_load_image()
nand_init() /*no need if drivers/mtd/nand.c is included in the SPL build*/
nand_deselect() /*usually an empty function*/
And drivers/mtd/nand/ – for driver examples for SPL – there are not too many of them for some reason.
For nand_init() I included drivers/mtd/nand.c – it calls board_nand_init() which is found in the driver for the full image – zynq_nand.c.
Defines in include/configs/elphel393.h:
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_ELPHEL393
#define CONFIG_SYS_NAND_U_BOOT_OFFS 0x100000 /*look-up in dts!*/
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_DRIVERS
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_INIT
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_BASE
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_ECC
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_BBT
#define CONFIG_SPL_NAND_IDS
/* Load U-Boot to this address */
#define CONFIG_SYS_NAND_U_BOOT_DST CONFIG_SYS_TEXT_BASE
#define CONFIG_SYS_NAND_U_BOOT_START CONFIG_SYS_NAND_U_BOOT_DST
CONFIG_SYS_NAND_U_BOOT_OFFS 0x100000 – is the offset in the flash where u-boot-dtb.img is written – this is done in OS. The flash partitions are defined in the device tree for the kernel.
Again a few small modifications (KConfigs and makefiles) to include everything in the build – see ezynq/u-boot-tree.
NOTES:
- Before boot.bin was about 60K (out of 192K available). After everything was included the size is 110K. Well, it fits and so the optimization can be done some time in the future for the driver to have only what is needed – init and read.
- drivers/mtd/nand/nand_base.c – kzalloc would hang the board – had to change it in the SPL build.
- drivers/mtd/nand/zynq_nand.c – added timeout for some flash functions (NAND_CMD_RESET) – addresses the case when the board has flash width configured (through MIO pins) but doesn’t carry flash or the flash cannot be detected for some reason. Not having timeout hangs such boards.
Other Notes
- With U-Boot moving to KBuild nobody knows what will happen to the CONFIG_EXTRA_ENV_SETTINGS – multi-line define.
- Current U-Boot uses a stripped down device tree – added to Ezynq.
- The ideal scenario is to boot from SPL straight to OS – the falcon mode (CONFIG_SPL_OS_BOOT). Consider in future.
- Tertiary Program Loader (TPL) – no plans.
Leave a Reply