[U-Boot] [PATCH 00/13] System Firmware Loader for TI K3 family SoCs

[Andreas Dannenberg]

Hi Tom,

On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 11:16:43AM -0400, Tom Rini wrote:
> On Tue, May 07, 2019 at 12:25:29PM -0500, Andreas Dannenberg wrote:
> 
> > TI K3 SoCs like the AM654x devices are fundamentally dependent on a
> > firmware called SYSFW (System Firmware) being loaded into the dedicated
> > DMSC (Device Management and Security Controller) processor to provide
> > various services via TISCI (Texas Instruments System Control Interface)
> > to manage device aspects such as core bringup, power, clocks, security,
> > and so on across the entire SoC.
> [snip]
> > While I also have a working solution based on the existing FS loader
> > framework this has its own challenges, namely by its very nature only
> > addressing a subset of our use cases (no eMMC/SD RAW boot support for
> > example), being heavier on resource usage (needing to use ENV to pass
> > parameters), and not addressing the need to probe the boot peripheral.
> > This particular framework works well for use cases requiring to load
> > firmware from FS-based media once DDR is up and U-Boot is in a more
> > "initialized" state but it is not a one-fits all solution for very
> > early use in SPL board_init_f() accross different boot modes.
> 
> I think one thing that might help here is to post this alternative
> solution and provide the 'size' information for both series.  In
> addition, build something like am335x_evm and socfpga_stratix10 for both
> series and include their before/after 'size' info too.  Thanks!

thanks for looking at this more closely. Sure, let me collect some data
on this front and also post the alternative solution. It won't be a
completely fair comparison however as the alternative solution only
supports FS-based MMC boot, whereas the solution proposed here also
supports eMMC/SD RAW boot, both partition and sector-based (and a
combination thereof).

--
Andreas Dannenberg
Texas Instruments Inc