[U-Boot] [PATCH 0/1] i.MX8QM ROM 7720 a1 board won't boot

[Oliver Graute]

On 16/08/19, Marcel Ziswiler wrote:
> Hi Oliver
> 
> On Fri, 2019-08-16 at 12:43 +0000, Oliver Graute wrote:
> > I'am currently working on the following patch to get the imx8qm-
> > rom7720-a1
> 
> That version sounds suspiciously like it may be based on initial alpha
> silicon from NXP which as far as I know is not supported anywhere any
> more. Not even in downstream.

yes this board is alpha. But thats all I have right now :-p But with the
vendor u-boot-imx the board is booting fine. So I assumed I could port
and adapt the files and boot things up with newest released u-boot.

> 
> If it has alpha silicon my suggestion is to throw it away and move on.
> 
> > board working with recent u-boot v2019.07.
> 
> v2019.07 has long since been released. So what you are talking about
> would be any future release like v2020.01 as even the v2019.10 merge
> window long since closed.

I understood that for patch integration it takes some time.

> 
> > Unfortunaly I get no output on my
> > serial line.
> 
> Alpha chips came with different boot ROM requiring completely different
> SCFW as far as I know.

Ok thats important info for me. Which I was not aware of.
> 
> > I'am not sure if something in my patch is just missing or if my
> > composition of
> > "SCFW + ATF + uboot" which is necessary for this imx8qm board, is not
> > working
> > the right way.
> 
> I am also wondering whether that hardware really does not require
> customised SCFW but rather relies on NXP's ancient since obsolete
> validation board one. If so it would need to be more or less fully
> identical to that hardware which I seriously doubt. Is that really the
> case?
> 
> > Perhaps somebody can guide me in the right direction to debug this
> > further.
> 
> To debug this one would probably need access to the SCU's tightly
> coupled UART aka SCU.UART0.RX/TX. Plus a special built SCFW that
> actually makes use of it. Do you have that?

No, currently I don't have the possibility to debug it on this level.
> 
> BTW: NXP's latest SCFWKIT is version 1.2.2 while you still reference
> ancient version 1.1. More or less the whole world changed ever since.

Ok, I'll ask my vendor which scfwkit I need for my alpha board here.

> 
> > Currently I'am applying the patch and building u-boot this way:
> > 
> > $ export ATF_LOAD_ADDR=0x80000000
> > $ export BL33_LOAD_ADDR=0x80020000
> > $ make imx8qm_rom7720_a1_4G_defconfig
> > $ make flash.bin
> > $ dd if=u-boot.itb of=flash.bin bs=512 seek=854
> > $ sudo dd if=flash.bin of=/dev/sd[x] bs=1k seek=32 conv=fsync
> 
> Well, meanwhile at least their MEKs NXP boots now via SPL. However, due
> to current incompatibility with their recovery tooling uuu at least we
> still boot our hardware without SPL but that would require building it
> differently e.g. see here:
> 
> https://gitlab.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/board/toradex/apalis-imx8/README
> 
> You may also be able to recovery boot it via serial downloader but that
> depends on fusing/strapping...

Thx for you comments,

Best regards,

Oliver