diff --git a/board/sunxi/README.pine64 b/board/sunxi/README.pine64 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5553415 --- /dev/null +++ b/board/sunxi/README.pine64 @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +Pine64 board README +==================== + +The Pine64(+) is a single board computer equipped with an AArch64 capable ARMv8 +compliant Allwinner A64 SoC. +This chip has ARM Cortex A-53 cores and thus can run both in AArch32 +(compatible to 32-bit ARMv7) and AArch64 modes. Upon reset the SoC starts +in AArch32 mode and executes 32-bit code from the Boot ROM (BROM). +This has some implications on U-Boot. + +Quick start +============ +- Get hold of a boot0.img file (see below for more details). +- Get the boot0img tool source from the tools directory in [1] and compile + that on your host. +- Build U-Boot: +$ export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- +$ make pine64_plus_defconfig +$ make +- You also need a compiled ARM Trusted Firmware (ATF) binary. Checkout the + "allwinner" branch from the github repository [2] and build it: +$ export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- +$ make PLAT=sun50iw1p1 DEBUG=1 bl31 + The resulting binary is build/sun50iw1p1/debug/bl31.bin. + +Now put an empty (or disposable) micro SD card in your card reader and learn +its device file name, replacing /dev/sd below with the result (that could +be /dev/mmcblk as well): + +$ ./boot0img --device /dev/sd -e -u u-boot.bin -B boot0.img \ + -d trampoline64:0x44000 -s bl31.bin -a 0x44008 -p 100 +(either copying the respective files to the working directory or specifying +the paths directly) + +This will create a new partition table (with a 100 MB FAT boot partition), +copies boot0.img, ATF and U-Boot to the proper locations on the SD card and +will fill in the magic Allwinner header to be recognized by boot0. +Prefix the above call with "sudo" if you don't have write access to the +uSD card. You can also use "-o output.img" instead of "--device /dev/sd" +to create an image file and "dd" that to the uSD card. +Omitting the "-p" option will skip the partition table. + +Now put this uSD card in the board and power it on. You should be greeted by +the U-Boot prompt. + + +Main U-Boot +============ +The main U-Boot proper is a real 64-bit ARMv8 port and runs entirely in the +64-bit AArch64 mode. It can load any AArch64 code, EFI applications or arm64 +Linux kernel images (often named "Image") using the booti command. +Launching 32-bit code and kernels is technically possible, though not without +drawbacks (or hacks to avoid them) and currently not implemented. + +SPL support +============ +The main task of the SPL support is to bring up the DRAM controller and make +DRAM actually accessible. At the moment there is no documentation or source +code available which would do this. +There are currently two ways to overcome this situation: using a tainted 32-bit +SPL (involving some hacks and resulting in a non-redistributable binary, thus +not described here) or using the Allwinner boot0 blob. + +boot0 method +------------- +boot0 is Allwiner's secondary program loader and it can be used as some kind +of SPL replacement to get U-Boot up and running. +The binary is a 32 KByte blob and contained on every Pine64 image distributed +so far. It can be easily extracted from a micro SD card or an image file: +# dd if=/dev/sd of=boot0.bin bs=8k skip=1 count=4 +where /dev/sd is the device name of the uSD card or the name of the image +file. Apparently Allwinner allows re-distribution of this proprietary code +as-is. +For the time being this boot0 blob is the only redistributable way of making +U-Boot work on the Pine64. Beside loading the various parts of the (original) +firmware it also switches the core into AArch64 mode. +The original boot0 code looks for U-Boot at a certain place on an uSD card +(at 19096 KB), also it expects a header with magic bytes and a checksum. +There is a tool called boot0img[1] which takes a boot0.bin image and a compiled +U-Boot binary (plus other binaries) and will populate that header accordingly. +To make space for the magic header, the pine64_plus_defconfig will make sure +there is sufficient space at the beginning of the U-Boot binary. +boot0img will also take care of putting the different binaries at the right +places on the uSD card and works around unused, but mandatory parts by using +trampoline code. See the output of "boot0img -h" for more information. +boot0img can also patch boot0 to avoid loading U-Boot from 19MB, instead +fetching it from just behind the boot0 binary (-B option). + +FEL boot +========= +FEL is the name of the Allwinner defined USB boot protocol built-in the +mask ROM of most Allwinner SoCs. It allows to bootstrap a board solely +by using the USB-OTG interface and a host port on another computer. +Since FEL boot does not work with boot0, it requires the libdram hack, which +is not described here. + +[1] https://github.com/apritzel/pine64/ +[2] https://github.com/apritzel/arm-trusted-firmware.git