• State
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 101 subscribers
  • Views 266 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Support feedback
Options
Options
Similar topics

This thread has been locked.

If you have a related question, please click the "Ask a related question" button in the top right corner. The newly created question will be automatically linked to this question.

Fastest boot-path on the TI816x

B.J. Buchalter
Intellectual 865 points

Hi Folks,

Just thinking ahead to my application. Our application will be deeply embedded and boot-time is a significant consideration. So, I will be thinning down the boot-sequence to the minimum required to maximize the boot speed of the part. One thing that obviously has a big impact on the boot time of the device is how fast it can get the bits out of the u-boot image, the boot kernel and the root filesystem. Right now I have been using the SD card for the boot. It is faster than TFTP/NFS but it is not really too speedy. I am wondering what would be the fastest boot path for my final board:

1) NOR

2) NAND

3) SPI -- I would guess not.

What considerations to I need to account for to provide the fastest boot? For example, I would expect that I would want a 16-bit boot device and to maximize the clock speed of the GPMC for the boot bank. Is there anything else I need to be thinking about or any documentation that I should be looking at more closely?

Best regards,

B.J.

  • 0
    TI__Expert 4245 points

    Hi B.J,

    There are some ideas posted at http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Boot_Time_Optimization. Please have a look at them for tips.

    --Sid

  • 0 in reply to Siddharth Heroor
    Intellectual 865 points
    Hi Sid, Thanks for the link. It is a bit light though. It seems to imply that NOR will provide the fastest boot media, but it is not explicit. Is that because NOR is fastest, or is that because the page was written for devices that did not support NAND. It mentions to optimize EMIF/GPMC fot the NOR device being used; any guidelines as to what characteristics to look for in the NOR and where to do the optimization (presumably in u-boot). Would it be faster to use an uncompressed kernel, or is copying a compressed kernel from (presumably) slower persistent storage and then uncompressing it in RAM faster? I will read through the links to see what else I can learn. Thanks for all info that you can provide. Best regards, B.J.
  • 0 in reply to B.J. Buchalter
    Guru 31670 points

    Buchalter,

    Are you still looking for reduced boot time?

    We've done boot time optimization on different TI platforms and has achieved very good boot time numbers as good as 2.6 secs on Linux with applications. We could boot linux kernel with bootloader and mount the filesystem in about 700ms on DM36x. If you are interested please get in touch with us.

    -Renjith

    www.pathpartnertech.com