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[FAQ] TDA4VM: Large size of tispl.bin after integrating custom DM firmware for MCU R5

Part Number: TDA4VM
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: TI-CGT

I have updated the Linux SDK top level Makefile to add my custom firmware for MCU1_0 (MCU R5).

As I understand the path to the ELF image needs to be set as UBOOT_DM in the Makefile. But after this the size of my tispl.bin has bloated up from < 1MB to ~6MB.

I an now not able to fit this in the default layout of OSPI where a 2MB section is reserved for tispl.bin.

What can be done to reduce the size of the tispl.bin?

  • The only reason why the A72 SPL (tispl.bin) image can be this big is if you are using the unstripped version of your elf image to create the tispl.bin.

    In the SDK all the application binaries for R5F have two flavors:

    1. <app_name>_<core>_<build_profile>.xer5f

    2. <app_name>_<core>_<build_profile>_strip.xer5f

    The stripped image is also an ELF image but does not have the symbol level information and hence is smaller than the unstripped xer5f.

    When building the tispl you should pass the stripped image for the UBOOT_DM flag and that should resolve the issue.

    If you are using ti-cgt then there is a utility armstrip (or armstrip.exe on Windows) which can be used to strip the image. The armstrip is a part of ti-cgt-arm_20.2.0.LTS/bin. If you are using the same compiler to compile your application then just run the below command to strip the image:

    <path_to_ti-cgt>/ti-cgt-arm_20.2.0.LTS/bin/armstrip.exe -p StartApplication.out -o StartApplication_stripped.out

    Regards

    Karan