66AK2G02: Boot from NAND

Lucas Mason

Part Number: 66AK2G02

Hello,

I am trying to boot the K2G general eval board off NAND. I am able to write files to the nand and have been able to boot from nand once in u-boot. However, I can't get the board to boot to u-boot from nand. Below you can see the partition table I have setup for this test:

0: bootloader 0x00100000 0x00000000 1 <Placed MLO
1: u.boot.spl 0x00100000 0x00100000 1 <Placed u-boot-spl.gph
2: u.boot 0x00100000 0x00200000 1 <Placed u-boot.img
3: u.boot.params 0x00080000 0x00300000 1 <placed boot.env

The files were all generated and copied to nand with default k2g_evm_defconfig in the SDK.

Any ideas where I am going wrong? I have tried looking around and havent been able to find the right answer.

Thanks!

over 7 years ago

0 Yordan Kovachev over 7 years ago

TI__Guru**** 161600 points

Hi,

See this wiki:
processors.wiki.ti.com/.../Program_EVM_UG

I don't have a K2G EVM at my disposal at the moment, but the procedure should be very similar.

Best Regards,
Yordan

0 Lucas Mason over 7 years ago in reply to Yordan Kovachev

Prodigy 50 points

I don't see on this wiki page where it shows how to setup the nand with u-boot and the MLO.

Thanks

0 Rahul Prabhu over 7 years ago

TI__Guru** 115810 points

Have you setup the boot switches of the EVM correctly to boot directly from NAND. The boot switch settings for this device are provided here:
processors.wiki.ti.com/.../66AK2G02_GP_EVM_Hardware_Setup

Can you please try with these settings.

Regards,
Rahul

0 Lucas Mason over 7 years ago in reply to Rahul Prabhu

Prodigy 50 points

I was setting the switches to 1011 as indicated in my initial testing. I was also checking the BMC and it was saying nand was the boot mode.

0 Rex Chang over 7 years ago in reply to Lucas Mason

TI__Guru 50170 points

Hi, Lucas,

It seems that the NAND boot is not supported in K2G. System Test does not have test cases for it. I am checking with development team. If that is the case, I'll update the wiki page to remove NAND boot from K2G.

Rex

0 Rex Chang over 7 years ago in reply to Rex Chang

TI__Guru 50170 points

Hi, Lucas,

In Linux Core U-boot User's Guide, http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Linux_Core_U-Boot_User%27s_Guide#Compiling_MLO_and_u-boot, it indicates K2G NAND boot is not supported. However, in the summary section at the beginning of the same document, it said "Yes" for K2G NAND boot. We corrected the error in summary section. Sorry for the confusion.

If you don't have other questions for K2G NAND boot, I'll close this thread. For other issues, please open a new thread. Thanks!

Rex

0 Lucas Mason over 7 years ago in reply to Rex Chang

Prodigy 50 points

Rex,

According to the TRM the GPMC controller should be an available boot mode. Is this then a feature that the EVM board doesn't support? If that is the case then what would it take to allow the 66A62G02 to boot from NAND? This is something I would like to test before building my custom board.

Thanks!

0 Rex Chang over 7 years ago in reply to Lucas Mason

TI__Guru 50170 points

Hi, Lucas,

The main reason for not supporting NAND boot is because of incompatibility of the ECC layout between that used by the ROM code and that used by u-boot & Linux. they switched to use OMAP-GPMC module on K2G but retained the ECC layout of older K2 platforms thus breaking compatibility with the GPMC-NAND driver.

NAND boot can be supported but needs some efforts. You will have switch to use the ECC layout that is used in the davinci_nand.c driver. As what was said about NAND boot, there is also a NAND instability issue accessing from Linux Kernel. Hence, TI descoped NAND support on K2G till the issue is understood and corrected.

Rex

0 Lucas Mason over 7 years ago in reply to Rex Chang

Prodigy 50 points

Rex,

Just to make sure I am understanding this correctly. The hardware is correct but the problem lies in software? Or is there something I would need to change with the hardware. I am just asking since I am going to baseline what the EVM board does for my custom board. If I use the same parts in the same way then I would just have to change software?

Thanks!

0 Rex Chang over 7 years ago in reply to Lucas Mason

TI__Guru 50170 points

Hi, Lucas,

We have not root cause the instability issue when accessing from Linux Kernel. We suspect it is the hardware issue. The NAND boot per se is software issue because of the incompatibility of the driver and ECC layout. We are not sure if you will hit the instability issue if you have the right software for NAND boot.

Rex

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66AK2G02: Boot from NAND