Yes, it's possible but you need to bear in mind the FPGA bitstream has
to come from somewhere.
If you use QSPI for the bitstream, you would have to offset the address
of the kernel when you access
it from the bootloader. The Vivado QSPI IP gives access to flash from
software but I don't know if it supports
every kind of QSPI that could be installed on the board. If you try to
access it from your own hardware design
you will have to deal with the problem of the configuration pins being
shared with user pins.
It's all doable but you need to be persistent and have an enquiring
attitude to chase down the different issues.
If you have a tool which generates the .bin files that Xilinx require,
this can be used to piggyback any binary file
using the .incbin function of the assembler. The boot loader would then
have to be modified to read the ELF header
of the loaded .bin file and find the section which was piggybacked.
On 20/03/18 08:57, Anup Kini wrote:
Thank You Jonathan for the explanation.
It looks rather cumbersome to go ahead with this option.
I looked at the Flash & Jump baremetal examples in v0.5.
I was wondering if we could use the onboard 1Gbit QSPI Flash in place
of the SD Card.
I tried to load the VMLINUX and BBL file directly using Xilinx
Hardware Manager, but the tool expects a bin file.
Something similar to zImage for ZYNQ.
is it possible to boot lowRISC using the onboard QSPI Flash?
Thanks & Regards,
Anup Kini.
On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 4:09 PM, Dr Jonathan Kimmitt <jrrk2(a)cam.ac.uk
<mailto:jrrk2@cam.ac.uk>> wrote:
It's possible to change the base address of RAM in Linux from
0x80000000 but this
has an impact on page tables, Berkeley boot loader, spike
simulator and chisel etc.
You might find it easier to modify your custom AXI interface
address if that is possible.
Alternatively if you have dynamic memory on board your card, you
could adapt the Xilinx MIG config
to use this memory and save the overhead of the custom AXI
interface. Most cards come
with an example MIG config to reduce the burden of setting all the
parameters correctly.
If you want to have a go at changing the kernel address, you need
to be aware that it is BBL that loads
at 0x80000000 and not the kernel itself. Typically the kernel
address will be loaded at the next megapage
which is typically 0x80200000. And the kernel never accesses this
address because it runs in supervisor mode
which sets the kernel address to 0xffffffff80000000 using the MMU.
If you change the base address you need
to make sure any calculations involving BBL address or MMU page
tables are corrected. All very simple NOT!
On 19/03/18 06:57, Anup Kini wrote:
Hi All,
I am trying to boot linux on lowRISC using a custom Virtex-7
board.
Unfortunately, the SD card interface has some issues and I am
unable to use
it.
I was able to bring up the lowRISC design and run hello world
and dram test
successfully.
Since, I do not have the SD Card, I tried to load the BBL
directly on to
DDR using the custom AXI interface provided by the board vendor.
It loads successfully and a few debug prints from the BBL also
show up on
the UART terminal. I had to modify the boot.c code inorder to
get this
working.
Going forward, I was curious to know if I can load the vmlinux
and root.bin
also to DDR and boot linux.
I understand that the base address for vmlinux is fixed to
0x80000000+OFFSET.
Will it be possible for me to change this and boot linux
directly from DDR ?
Thanks & Regards,
Anup Kini.