[U-Boot] [PATCH] tegra2: move tegra2 SoC code to arch/arm/cpu/tegra2-common

[Simon Glass]

Hi Allen,

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 12:52 PM, Allen Martin <amartin at nvidia.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:31:44AM -0700, Simon Glass wrote:
> >
> > -Have the armv4t build reach up and over into armv7
> > -Move the code out to board/nvidia
> >
> > Both of these seemed worse
> >
> > I've thought about this a bit more. To me you have a bit of a unique
> problem in that you need to build the code as both ARMv4T and ARMv7. The
> way it works at the moment is pretty simple - we just mark a few files that
> must be build with ARMv4T and ARMv7 is happy with that also.
> >
> > I believe the point of the 'cpu' directory is to separate out common
> code between different architectures. It seems you want a chip which uses
> two different architectures. That might be unique in the U-Boot world - I
> note that other SOCs with different chips use ARMv7 for all of them.
> >
> > But really, who cares what architecture you actually use? The code
> clearly doesn't include ARMv7-isms otherwise it wouldn't build with current
> compile options. It does work...
> >
> > So my suggestion is that you just continue as now, and build the
> relevant code for ARMv4T. I don't see a compelling reason to move it, least
> of all into a no-man's land at the same level as 'cpu'.
> >
>
> The problem that pushed me over the edge on this was the patch series
> to add thumb support for ARM.  The linker has to insert interworking
> code for the cross ARM/thumb calls.  If it is linking armv4t and armv7
> objects together it will promote them all to armv7 style interworking
> which uses instructions that are illegal on armv4t.  The only fix for
> this is to link armv4t objects separately or not support thumb, and we
> would really like to support thumb.
>

OK I just remembered this thread...

The Thumb reason makes good sense to me. That said, you could arrange to
avoid interworked calls and have all the ARMv4 code built with the same
flags (and not allow the ARM7TDMI to enter board_init_f()).

So perhaps another way of putting it is that you are using SPL as a
convenient and existing way to allow you to built two parts of U-Boot with
separate flags.


>
> Also it's not true that the code in arch/arm/cpu/armv7 doesn't include
> any armv7'isms, we're just #ifdef around them for the tegra and call
> them later in the boot sequence when we know we're running on the A9.
> We also have to code the init sequence extremely carefully to make
> sure we don't call any armv7 code on the armv4t.  It's extremely
> fragile as any changes to start.S or the ordering of the init sequence
> can (and have) broken us.
>

See my other mail about this. I think you overstate things a little :-)
 But anyway, I think I understand the desirability for this now.


>
> -Allen
> --
> nvpublic
>

Regards,
Simon