[U-Boot-Users] How big should U-Boot be for a 405EP based board?

Conn Clark clark at esteem.com
Fri Jan 9 19:37:05 CET 2004


Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> In message <3FFDFC1D.200 at esteem.com> you wrote:
> 
>>We have a single flash chip on our board that will be either 4MB or 8MB. 
>>Due to the way that the 405EP boots up I thought that the smallest I 
>>could ever get U-Boot's binary image was two megs. However, when I 
> 
> 
> You maust be doing something very strange. 
> 
> 
>>compile and link it it turns out to be 256K. Is this correct or am I 
>>mistaken on the minimal size of U-Boot for a 405EP based board?
> 
> 
> U-Boot easily fits in 170...240 kB.
> 
> You did not ptovide any details,

I apologise.

> so I can only speculate that you put
> the U-Boot start address somewhere in lower  flash  memory.  Remember
> that  the  405 uses 0xFFFFFFFC as reset address, so if you put U-Boot
> at 0xFF000000 the binary image will have to cover all the range  from
> 0xFF000000  to  0xFFFFFFFF (= 16 MB) even if only 200 kB are actually
> used. Just put U-Boot to a high  address  in  flash,  something  like
> 0xFFFC0000
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk
> 

	As you stated, the reset vector is at 0xFFFFFFFC . Unfortunatly uppon 
reset the EBC0_B0CR address is set to 0xFFE00000 and the size is set to 
2MB . This puts our reset vector right in the middle of our 4MB flash 
chip. We are using a bottom boot block flash part and I was hoping to 
use the smaller sectors for the environment. Our main goal right now  is 
the verification of the hardware so efficiency of flash usage is not a 
priority ( Fortunatly our kernel and ram disk will fit in the remaining 
  2MB though this will probably change in the future). I placed U-boot 
at the beginning of the flash address space just to get things done.

	Although I am certain that U-boot actual code consumes only about 200K 
to 256K, with how I defined it my binary image should be 2MB. My problem 
is my binary image is only 256K in size and not the 2MB I was expecting.

Sorry for not being more specific.

More misc. details from board specific header file.

#define FLASH_BASE0_PRELIM	0xFF800000  /* FLASH bank #0	*/

/*-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  * Start addresses for the final memory configuration
  * (Set up by the startup code)
  * Please note that CFG_SDRAM_BASE _must_ start at 0
  */
#define CFG_SDRAM_BASE		0x00000000
#define CFG_MAX_SDRAM_SIZE	0x04000000
#define CFG_FLASH_BASE		0xFF800000
#define CFG_MONITOR_BASE	CFG_FLASH_BASE
#define CFG_MONITOR_LEN		(256 * 1024)    /* Reserve 256 kB for Monitor	*/
#define CFG_MALLOC_LEN		(256 * 1024)	/* Reserve 256 kB for malloc()	*/



PS.
I remember a few years ago someone in the PPC-Boot mailing list said 
something about a split PPC-Boot image. Would this be possible in 
U-Boot? Seeing that no matter what we do U-Boot is going to occupy a 
sector in the middle of our flash memory map it would allow us to use 
some of the space wasted.

Thanks in advance

	Conn Clark

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Conn Clark
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Electronic Systems Technology Inc.		www.esteem.com

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