[microblaze-uclinux] booting uClinux from FLASH

[anand_12 <anand_12@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all


 We have a memec spartan 2E (microblaze) board running uClinux which is directly connected now to the LAN hub with its own internal IP address.Till now,we were using XMD each time to download the image on to the SDRAM and then boot from there.But now we want to use FLASH to boot our image.
(I mean FLASH to store the image,and move it to SDRAM to execute it)

 We have 8MB of FLASH on the P160 extension module(1MB SRAM also).I have some doubts regarding FLASH :

1. How do we program the FLASH chip on the board?Are there any tools by which we can directly download the image onto the FLASH?If yes,then which image will we download,image.bin or image.elf??

2. Microblaze as such is designed to start executing from physical address 0x00000000 on reset.This is mapped to the internal BRAM.So is this where our bootloader should reside?

3. What exactly should the bootloader do?I mean,will the bootloader assume that there is an image already existing in the FLASH so that it can just issue instructions to move the image from FLASH to RAM and then start executing it?

 Otherwise,will the bootloader also burn the image on to the FLASH and then subsequently move it to RAM?

 I am not very sure about this.Can anybody help me with this?

Now that we have a fully functional ethernet connection on board,can we  use any net based tool to directly program/update the FLASH?

I have checked the mailing list posts on the website for any FLASH related information.Though I did find something about an 'elfloader' and 'u-boot port for Microblaze'..its usage and availability was not immediately clear.

Can we use XMD to download the image on to the FLASH?


Thanks in advance for any information in this regard.

Cheers

V.Anand
(www.tenet.res.in)














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