Re: [PATCH 0/3] riscv: Add support for the BeagleBoard.org BeagleV-Ahead

Re: [PATCH 0/3] riscv: Add support for the BeagleBoard.org BeagleV-Ahead

[Yao Zi]

On Sat, Oct 17, 2026 at 07:41:20PM +0200, Thomas Perrot wrote:
> This series adds support for the BeagleBoard.org BeagleV-Ahead, a single
> board computer built around the T-Head TH1520 SoC (4x Xuantie C910) with
> 4 GB of LPDDR4X and 16 GB of eMMC.
> 
> Most of the work is already upstream: the TH1520 SoC support added for the
> Lichee Pi 4A (SPL, DDR controller, clock and pinctrl drivers, binman FIT
> generation) and the BeagleV-Ahead devicetree, which is available through
> OF_UPSTREAM. The board therefore only needs a small board directory, a
> U-Boot specific devicetree include and a defconfig.
> 
> The one missing piece is in the DDR controller driver, which only accepts
> the dual rank firmware and fails with -EINVAL on the BeagleV-Ahead. The
> first patch makes it program the rank configuration and the address map
> from the number of ranks described by the firmware.
> 
> As on the Lichee Pi 4A, u-boot-with-spl.bin contains the SPL, the DDR
> firmware, OpenSBI and U-Boot proper, and is loaded into SRAM through
> fastboot.
> 
> The BeagleV-Ahead has a single rank of LPDDR4X, so the DDR firmware has to
> be generated from lpddr4x-3733-singlerank.lua, which is already provided by
> https://github.com/ziyao233/th1520-firmware, instead of the dual rank
> configuration used by the Lichee Pi 4A. This is described in the
> documentation added by the third patch.
> 
> Testing: the series builds with the Bootlin riscv64 glibc toolchain
> (2026.08-1) together with OpenSBI v1.9, and produces a u-boot-with-spl.bin
> holding the SPL, the DDR firmware and the FIT image.
> 
> The image was loaded into SRAM through the BROM fastboot interface on a
> BeagleV-Ahead. Without the first patch the SPL stops with "failed to
> initialize DDR controller: -22". With it, the DDR is initialized with the
> single rank firmware, OpenSBI and U-Boot proper start, and the console
> reports "Model: BeagleV Ahead", "DRAM:  4 GiB", both MMC controllers and
> the Ethernet device. The Ethernet link, the eMMC and microSD accesses and
> writing U-Boot to the eMMC were not tested. The dual rank behavior is
> unchanged by the first patch, but I could not test it on a Lichee Pi 4A.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Thomas Perrot <thomas.perrot@bootlin.com>

lists.denx.de has been down for some time, and U-Boot has switched
to u-boot@lists.u-boot-project.org for development, please update your
Git tree.

Please re-send the series to the available address, so there's a public
copy available to everyone, and I'll continue to review, thanks for your
patch.

Regards,
Yao Zi

Re: [PATCH 0/3] riscv: Add support for the BeagleBoard.org BeagleV-Ahead

[Thomas Perrot]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3086 bytes --]

Hello Yao,

On Tue, 2026-11-03 at 13:30 +0000, Yao Zi wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 17, 2026 at 07:41:20PM +0200, Thomas Perrot wrote:
> > This series adds support for the BeagleBoard.org BeagleV-Ahead, a
> > single
> > board computer built around the T-Head TH1520 SoC (4x Xuantie C910)
> > with
> > 4 GB of LPDDR4X and 16 GB of eMMC.
> > 
> > Most of the work is already upstream: the TH1520 SoC support added
> > for the
> > Lichee Pi 4A (SPL, DDR controller, clock and pinctrl drivers,
> > binman FIT
> > generation) and the BeagleV-Ahead devicetree, which is available
> > through
> > OF_UPSTREAM. The board therefore only needs a small board
> > directory, a
> > U-Boot specific devicetree include and a defconfig.
> > 
> > The one missing piece is in the DDR controller driver, which only
> > accepts
> > the dual rank firmware and fails with -EINVAL on the BeagleV-Ahead.
> > The
> > first patch makes it program the rank configuration and the address
> > map
> > from the number of ranks described by the firmware.
> > 
> > As on the Lichee Pi 4A, u-boot-with-spl.bin contains the SPL, the
> > DDR
> > firmware, OpenSBI and U-Boot proper, and is loaded into SRAM
> > through
> > fastboot.
> > 
> > The BeagleV-Ahead has a single rank of LPDDR4X, so the DDR firmware
> > has to
> > be generated from lpddr4x-3733-singlerank.lua, which is already
> > provided by
> > https://github.com/ziyao233/th1520-firmware, instead of the dual
> > rank
> > configuration used by the Lichee Pi 4A. This is described in the
> > documentation added by the third patch.
> > 
> > Testing: the series builds with the Bootlin riscv64 glibc toolchain
> > (2026.08-1) together with OpenSBI v1.9, and produces a u-boot-with-
> > spl.bin
> > holding the SPL, the DDR firmware and the FIT image.
> > 
> > The image was loaded into SRAM through the BROM fastboot interface
> > on a
> > BeagleV-Ahead. Without the first patch the SPL stops with "failed
> > to
> > initialize DDR controller: -22". With it, the DDR is initialized
> > with the
> > single rank firmware, OpenSBI and U-Boot proper start, and the
> > console
> > reports "Model: BeagleV Ahead", "DRAM:  4 GiB", both MMC
> > controllers and
> > the Ethernet device. The Ethernet link, the eMMC and microSD
> > accesses and
> > writing U-Boot to the eMMC were not tested. The dual rank behavior
> > is
> > unchanged by the first patch, but I could not test it on a Lichee
> > Pi 4A.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Thomas Perrot <thomas.perrot@bootlin.com>
> 
> lists.denx.de has been down for some time, and U-Boot has switched
> to u-boot@lists.u-boot-project.org for development, please update
> your
> Git tree.
> 
> Please re-send the series to the available address, so there's a
> public
> copy available to everyone, and I'll continue to review, thanks for
> your
> patch.
> 

Thanks, Yao. I just resent it to the new mailing list.

Kind regards,
Thomas

> Regards,
> Yao Zi

-- 
Thomas Perrot, Bootlin
Embedded Linux and kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 659 bytes --]