[FAQ] TDA4VM-Q1: TIDL back port guide including SDK 9.x and SDK 10.x

Tool/software:

New features of TIDL are always added with new SDK release, but it is not possible to upgrade the whole SDK because this will affect all parts of software. This thread will cover TIDL backporting form 9.x to all lower versions and 10.x to 9.x.

TIDL backporting from 9.x to 8.x

Please refer to the existing FAQ:

https://e2e.ti.com/support/processors-group/processors/f/processors-forum/1291107/faq-j721s2xsomxevm-backporting-patches-for-tidl-from-9-0-to-8-6-sdk-for-j721s2 

TIDL backporting from 8.x to 7.x

Please refer to this application note:

https://www.ti.com/lit/an/sprad65/sprad65.pdf 

TIDL backporting from 9.x to 7.x 

Although the directory structure changed from 7.x to 8.x , the application note mentioned above still covers this topic well. The process can be concluded as the follows, (using 9.2 to 7.3 on TDA4VM as an example)

1. Download all the SDKs as needed.
   1. Download SDK 7.3 : https://www.ti.com/tool/download/PROCESSOR-SDK-RTOS-J721E/07.03.00.07 and SDK 9.2 : https://www.ti.com/tool/download/PROCESSOR-SDK-RTOS-J721E/09.02.00.05 
   2. Setup environment, build SDK7.3 and run vision apps to verify the environment is well set as instructed by SDK user guide
2. Change all the folder content associated with TIDL.
   1. pdk folder change on 7.3 pdk_09_02_to_07_03.patch
   2. vision apps folder change on 7.3 vision_apps_09_02_to_07_03.patch
   3. ivision folder change on 7.3 ivision_backport_09_02_to_07_03.patch
   4. mmalib folder change on 7.3 mmalib_backport_09_02_to_07_03.patch
   5. cp all content in c7x-mma-tidl in SDK 9.2 to tidl_j7 folder of SDK 7.3 and replace all file with same name.
   6. run setup_psdk_rtos.sh in ti-processor-rtos-j721e-evm-09_02_00_05/sdk_builder/script and this will install the compiler of c7x in /home/user/ti. Copy all the content in /home/user/ti/ti-cgt-c7000.4.1.0.LTS to ti-cgt-c7000_1.4.2.LTS of SDK7.3. 
3. Change the memory map as you need!

Note! All these backporting method needs careful implementation and there is no guarantee that backporting is successful once you completed. You need to use the tidl_model_import.out to import the models with above methods.  

TIDL backporting from 10.x to 9.x

Different from other backporting method, the directory structure between 10.x and 9.x is not large. If you want to try new features introduced by 10.x on top of 9.x SDK, please refer to the back compatibility of edgeai-tidl-tools:

https://github.com/TexasInstruments/edgeai-tidl-tools/blob/master/docs/backward_compatibility.md 

If you complete backporting using this method, please use edgeai-tidl-tools to import and evaluate models. 

Regards,

Adam