[U-Boot] [PATCH 4/9] ARM: socfpga: Bundle U-Boot fitImage into SFP on Arria10

Chee, Tien Fong
2018-11-26T10:30:54Z

On Fri, 2018-11-23 at 13:40 +0100, Marek Vasut wrote:
> On 11/23/2018 10:54 AM, Chee, Tien Fong wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, 2018-11-21 at 15:21 +0100, Marek Vasut wrote:
> > >
> > > On 11/21/2018 11:41 AM, tien.fong.chee at intel.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > From: Tien Fong Chee <tien.fong.chee@intel.com>
> > > Did you change Author:ship of the patch ?
> I believe you did, so please fix that.
Very sorry. I din't realize the author name was changed.
>
> >
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Bundle U-Boot fitImage containing U-Boot and FPGA bitstream
> > > > into
> > > > the
> > > > u-boot-with-spl.sfp on Arria10. This lets U-Boot operate in a
> > > > very
> > > > similar fashion to Gen5, where the U-Boot binary got loaded by
> > > > the
> > > > SPL from a uImage concatenated at the end of the SPL SFP image.
> > > > On
> > > > Gen10, the U-Boot is in fitImage which contains the FPGA
> > > > bitstream
> > > > as well. In this case, the SPL can load the FPGA bitstream
> > > > first
> > > > and
> > > > load the U-Boot afterward in the same manner. This is
> > > > nonetheless a
> > > > stopgap measure until there is a proper firmware loader in U-
> > > > Boot.
> > > Right, this is a stopgap measure until FW loader is present. Why
> > > is
> > > this
> > > patch needed at all in this series ?
> > This patch is cherry picked from the sdmmc_next custodian, so this
> > patch is required for generating FIT image. I can remove the
> > stopgap
> > comment to avoid confusing.
> But why is this patch needed at all ? You use the firmware loader to
> load the FPGA bitstream. Where does the fitImage come into play ?
>
> The fitImage was used to circumvent the missing FW loader, when I
> needed
> to load multiple files (bitstream and u-boot binary). Now there is no
> such requirement anymore, so the entire fitImage machinery is
> probably
> not needed ?
Loading issue is not the reason we choose the fitImage. We choose it
because it allows more flexibility in handling various type images,
especially it allows user more choices to enhance integrity and
security protection.

Although we plan to use fitImage as our default implementation, but
this series of patches are still allow fw loading individual bitstream
image in filesystem partition. So, it is up to user to made the choice.
>