xref: /openbmc/u-boot/doc/README.SPL (revision 70ad375e)
1Generic SPL framework
2=====================
3
4Overview
5--------
6
7To unify all existing implementations for a secondary program loader (SPL)
8and to allow simply adding of new implementations this generic SPL framework
9has been created. With this framework almost all source files for a board
10can be reused. No code duplication or symlinking is necessary anymore.
11
12
13How it works
14------------
15
16There is a new directory $(srctree)/spl which contains only a Makefile.
17The object files are built separately for SPL and placed in this directory.
18The final binaries which are generated are u-boot-spl, u-boot-spl.bin and
19u-boot-spl.map.
20
21During the SPL build a variable named CONFIG_SPL_BUILD is exported
22in the make environment and also appended to CPPFLAGS with -DCONFIG_SPL_BUILD.
23Source files can therefore be compiled for SPL with different settings.
24ARM-based boards have previously used the option CONFIG_PRELOADER for it.
25
26For example:
27
28ifeq ($(CONFIG_SPL_BUILD),y)
29COBJS-y += board_spl.o
30else
31COBJS-y += board.o
32endif
33
34COBJS-$(CONFIG_SPL_BUILD) += foo.o
35
36#ifdef CONFIG_SPL_BUILD
37	foo();
38#endif
39
40
41The building of SPL images can be with:
42
43#define CONFIG_SPL
44
45Because SPL images normally have a different text base, one has to be
46configured by defining CONFIG_SPL_TEXT_BASE. The linker script has to be
47defined with CONFIG_SPL_LDSCRIPT.
48
49To support generic U-Boot libraries and drivers in the SPL binary one can
50optionally define CONFIG_SPL_XXX_SUPPORT. Currently following options
51are supported:
52
53CONFIG_SPL_LIBCOMMON_SUPPORT (common/libcommon.o)
54CONFIG_SPL_LIBDISK_SUPPORT (disk/libdisk.o)
55CONFIG_SPL_I2C_SUPPORT (drivers/i2c/libi2c.o)
56CONFIG_SPL_GPIO_SUPPORT (drivers/gpio/libgpio.o)
57CONFIG_SPL_MMC_SUPPORT (drivers/mmc/libmmc.o)
58CONFIG_SPL_SERIAL_SUPPORT (drivers/serial/libserial.o)
59CONFIG_SPL_SPI_FLASH_SUPPORT (drivers/mtd/spi/libspi_flash.o)
60CONFIG_SPL_SPI_SUPPORT (drivers/spi/libspi.o)
61CONFIG_SPL_FAT_SUPPORT (fs/fat/libfat.o)
62CONFIG_SPL_LIBGENERIC_SUPPORT (lib/libgeneric.o)
63CONFIG_SPL_POWER_SUPPORT (drivers/power/libpower.o)
64CONFIG_SPL_NAND_SUPPORT (drivers/mtd/nand/libnand.o)
65CONFIG_SPL_DRIVERS_MISC_SUPPORT (drivers/misc)
66CONFIG_SPL_DMA_SUPPORT (drivers/dma/libdma.o)
67CONFIG_SPL_POST_MEM_SUPPORT (post/drivers/memory.o)
68CONFIG_SPL_NAND_LOAD (drivers/mtd/nand/nand_spl_load.o)
69CONFIG_SPL_SPI_LOAD (drivers/mtd/spi/spi_spl_load.o)
70CONFIG_SPL_RAM_DEVICE (common/spl/spl.c)
71CONFIG_SPL_WATCHDOG_SUPPORT (drivers/watchdog/libwatchdog.o)
72
73Normally CPU is assumed to be the same between the SPL and normal
74u-boot build.  However it is possible to specify a different CPU for
75the SPL build for cases where the SPL is expected to run on a
76different CPU model from the main u-boot.  This is done by specifying
77an SPL CPU in boards.cfg as follows:
78
79	normal_cpu:spl_cpu
80
81This case CPU will be set to "normal_cpu" during the main u-boot
82build and "spl_cpu" during the SPL build.
83
84
85Debugging
86---------
87
88When building SPL with DEBUG set you may also need to set CONFIG_PANIC_HANG
89as in most cases do_reset is not defined within SPL.
90
91
92Estimating stack usage
93----------------------
94
95With gcc 4.6 (and later) and the use of GNU cflow it is possible to estimate
96stack usage at various points in run sequence of SPL.  The -fstack-usage option
97to gcc will produce '.su' files (such as arch/arm/cpu/armv7/syslib.su) that
98will give stack usage information and cflow can construct program flow.
99
100Must have gcc 4.6 or later, which supports -fstack-usage
101
1021) Build normally
1032) Perform the following shell command to generate a list of C files used in
104SPL:
105$ find spl -name '*.su' | sed -e 's:^spl/::' -e 's:[.]su$:.c:' > used-spl.list
1063) Execute cflow:
107$ cflow --main=board_init_r `cat used-spl.list` 2>&1 | $PAGER
108
109cflow will spit out a number of warnings as it does not parse
110the config files and picks functions based on #ifdef.  Parsing the '.i'
111files instead introduces another set of headaches.  These warnings are
112not usually important to understanding the flow, however.
113