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DRA821U: Query Regarding Slow eMMC Flashing Through DFU

Ashwini A
Prodigy 150 points

Part Number: DRA821U
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: DRA821, AM62L

We are working on a custom board based on the DRA821 platform and are using the DFU utility to flash an eMMC device.

The image being flashed is a rootfs.wic.xz file generated from a Yocto build using the tisdk-default-image target(tisdk-default-image-<machine-name>-<date&time>.rootfs.wic.xz)this file is converted to rootfs.wic using below command
unxz rootfs.wic.xz

We are flashing the image using the following command:

./dfu-util -a rootfs -D rootfs.wic

However, we are observing that flashing the eMMC takes approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete, which seems significantly longer than expected.

Could you please help us understand:

What factors could cause DFU flashing to take this long?
Is this expected behavior for flashing a WIC image through DFU on DRA821?
Are there any known limitations related to USB speed, DFU configuration, eMMC configuration, or image format that could affect the flashing performance?
Are there any recommended methods or configuration changes to improve the flashing speed and reduce the programming time?
Is there a more efficient TI-recommended approach for programming large WIC images to eMMC during production?

We would appreciate any guidance on optimizing the flashing process.

Thanks & Regards,
Ashwini

  • 0
    TI__Guru**** 170520 points

    Hello Ashwini,

    I am looping in our emmc expert. May I know the size of the rootfs image that you are flashing to emmc over dfu?

    Best Regards,

    Keerthy 

  • 0 in reply to Keerthy J
    Prodigy 150 points

    Dear Keerthy,

    Size of the rootfs is 10GB.

    Regards,

    Ashwini

  • 0 in reply to Ashwini A
    TI__Mastermind 18620 points

    HI Ashwini,

    Ashwini A said:
    However, we are observing that flashing the eMMC takes approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to complete, which seems significantly longer than expected.
    Ashwini A said:
    Is this expected behavior for flashing a WIC image through DFU on DRA821?

    Yes, this is expected behaviour while flashing WIC image.

    You can also have a look at the below E2E for reference:

     TDA4VM: how to improve poor performance of dfu-util flash speed? 

    Best Regards

    Gokul Praveen

  • 0 in reply to Gokul Praveen
    Prodigy 150 points

    Dear Gokul,

    Thank you for the clarification.

    We understand that this behavior is expected when flashing a WIC image through DFU on DRA821.

    However, we have observed that on the AM62Lx platform, flashing a WIC image through DFU completes in less than 30 minutes, whereas on DRA821 it takes approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.

    Could you please help us understand the reason for this difference? Specifically:

    eMMC on DRA821 : SDINBDG4-16G-XI1 (flashing 10GB wic file)
    eMMC on AM62L  : SDINBDG4-8G-XI1  (flashing 7 GB wic file)

    Are there any architectural or hardware differences between DRA821 and AM62Lx that impact DFU flashing performance?
    Are there any recommended optimizations or configuration changes to improve the flashing speed on DRA821?

    Any additional details regarding the factors affecting DFU throughput on DRA821 would be helpful.

    Regards,
    Ashwini

  • 0 in reply to Ashwini A
    TI__Mastermind 18620 points

    Hi Ashwini

    Apologies for the delay.

    Ashwini A said:
    MMC on DRA821 : SDINBDG4-16G-XI1 (flashing 10GB wic file)
    eMMC on AM62L  : SDINBDG4-8G-XI1  (flashing 7 GB wic file)

    Are there any architectural or hardware differences between DRA821 and AM62Lx that impact DFU flashing performance?

    It could be that since a different eMMC part is used , it could affect the perfomance as the eMMC write speed can vary between the 2 devices. I would recommend using tftp boot if you have ethernet support which is much more faster.

    Ashwini A said:
    Are there any recommended optimizations or configuration changes to improve the flashing speed on DRA821?

    Do you have ethernet support on your board? That could be tried as well. If yes, tftp can be used at u-boot which is more faster.

    Best Regards

    Gokul Praveen.