Zynq 7 Prepare and Boot Hardware

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• FSBL Method
  • Files Required
  • Create the FSBL
  • Create the Boot Image
  • Preparing the SD Card
• SPL Method
• Useful Links

There are two main ways that you can boot the board using an SD Card. The way that I've been using recently is via Xilinx SDK bootgen and FSBL (First Stage Boot Loader). Another possibility is to use SPL (Secondary Program Loader) which has a similar, different set of files necessary.

FSBL Method

The general steps are highlighted below:

1. Generate your device tree (if not using the evaluation board) from Vivado
2. Build your kernel image (also provides a uImage and u-boot binary) using bitbake
3. Wrap the filesystem image in u-boot headers [if necessary!]
4. Use Vivado to create a boot image from the zynq fsbl
5. Copy all necessary files to SD card (FAT32, single partition)

Files Required

• u-boot.elf from bitbake (recommended!) or manually compiling the u-boot source code (not recommended!)
• top.bit from your synthesized hardware project

Create the FSBL

Open up the Xilinx SDK with the HDF (hardware description file) and BIT (bitstream file) loaded. From here, you will first create an application project for the Zynq FSBL File > New > Application Project:

and then select the Zynq FSBL project

and then the SDK will automatically build the necessary files, including the fsbl.elf file and copy over the bitstream file. The fsbl.elf file and the bitstream file will most likely be found in the Debug/ folder under that project. This completes the first step.

Create the Boot Image

Now, we just need to create the boot image BOOT.BIN with the necessary files loaded in the correct order. From the Xilinx SDK, Xilinx Tools > Create Boot Image which brings up a dialog

where we need to have the following files loaded in exactly this order and type

File Type	File Name
bootloader	/path/to/sdk/fsbl_project/Debug/fsbl.elf
datafile	/path/to/sdk/fsbl_project/Debug/top.bit
datafile	/path/to/bitbake/files/u-boot.elf

and then we can go ahead and Create Image. This will be created in the FSBL project under the bootimage/ folder.

Preparing the SD Card

The SD Card should have the following files

Originating	File Name	Description
Xilinx SDK	BOOT.BIN	Binary image containing the FSBL and U-Boot images produced by bootgen
bitbake	devicetree.dtb	Device tree binary blob used by Linux, loaded into memory by U-Boot
bitbake	uramdisk.image.gz	Ramdisk image used by Linux, loaded into memory by U-Boot
bitbake	u-boot.elf	U-Boot elf file used to create the BOOT.BIN image
bitbake	uImage	Linux kernel image, loaded into memory by U-Boot
Xilinx SDK	fsbl.elf	FSBL elf image used to create BOOT.BIN image

SPL Method

This method is currently documented here. It has not been used by us yet.

Useful Links

• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Prepare+Boot+Medium
• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Ubuntu+on+Zynq
• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Zynq+Release+14.4 and http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Zynq+2015.2+Release
• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Zynq+Linux
• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/U-boot
• https://github.com/Xilinx/embeddedsw/tree/master/lib/sw_apps/zynq_fsbl/src
• http://git.denx.de/?p=u-boot.git;a=tree;f=board/xilinx/zynq;h=2fc205e4e97071b73a16c00dec1d6804e418343f;hb=HEAD
• https://github.com/Xilinx/meta-xilinx/blob/master/README.booting.md#loading-via-sd
• http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/U-Boot+Secondary+Program+Loader#Task%20Description-Build%20U-Boot%20SPL