S32G-VNP-RDB3 Boot from NOR Flash

[pcentauri92]

Hi NXP Community,

I am trying to boot the S32G-VNP-RDB3 board from the on board NOR Flash. I have used BSP43.0 to generate the required images. I am following the AN13727 application note but that seems to be directed toward BSP35.0 and older and does not contain instructions on how to use the new image format.

In the "Flashing image with SD card-less" section in AN13727, the image name used there is fip.s32-qspi but BSP43.0 generates images with the name fip.bin-qspi along with the bl2_w_dtb.s32-qspi as shown below.

I am writing the images to the NOR Flash using the S32 Flashtool GUI after setting the board to Serial boot mode.

The steps I follow are:

1. Set the board to serial boot mode

2. Upload the flash algorithm (MX25UW51245G) and then verify by using "Get Flash ID" option in the GUI.

3. Upload bl2_w_dtb.s32-qspi to offset 0x0 using the "Upload file to device" option

4. Upload fip.bin-qspi  to offset 0x100000. I chose that address as it is mentioned in the S32G_Bootloader_V2-2022.1024_eng Guide.

When I then put the board in NOR Flash boot mode, the BL2 bootloader loads but then fails to find the next stage bootloader as shown below

I have tried uploading the fip.bin-qspi  file at multiple offset locations (0x80000, 0x100000, 0x200000, 0x400000) but they all lead to the same issue.

The fip.bin-qspi does contain the BL33 image as can be seen from the output of fiptool

$ tools/fiptool/fiptool info /home/auto_yocto_bsp/fsl-auto-yocto-bsp/build_s32g399ardb3/tmp/deploy/images/s32g399ardb3/fip.bin-qspi 
EL3 Runtime Firmware BL31: offset=0x90, size=0x21185, cmdline="--soc-fw"
Non-Trusted Firmware BL33: offset=0x21220, size=0xC4A60, cmdline="--nt-fw"

Am I missing out on anything here or is there some other file that needs to be uploaded to the Flash. It would be helpful if you could point me to a newer application note based on BSP43.0 if available.

Thank you.

[chenyin_h · Accepted solution]

Hello, @pcentauri92 

Thanks for your reply.

1. It is a little complicated for the setups of booting from QSPI under BSP43, so it is suggested preparing a bootable SD card in advance.

Once booting from SD, under u-boot, the following steps are shown for your reference.

The kernel, dtb, rootfs, etc. could be flashed similarly, for details, I suggest reading 4.2.5 of BSP43.0 UM.

2. For accessing the BSP43.0 UM, firstly check if it existed in your NXP account, if not existed, I suggest applying it via the following link:

https://www.nxp.com/app-autopackagemgr/automotive-software-package-manager:AUTO-SW-PACKAGE-MANAGER

Click the button on the bottom right, and following the guide step by step, once it is approved, the BSP43.0 images and documents could be accessed from your account.

I hope it will help.

BR

Chenyin

[chenyin_h]

Hello, @pcentauri92 

Thanks for the post.

The documents you mentioned are written based on relatively early version BSPs, for recent BSP release, I suggest reading the BSP UM directly.

There are some changes regarding to the images structure since BSP43, currently, for flashing images on SD boot with BSP43, firstly, you may have to create 3 partitions on the SD card, then flash the bl2 and fip files respectively:

dd if=bl2_w_dtb.s32 of=${DEVSD} conv=notrunc,fsync seek=512 skip=512 oflag=seek_bytes iflag=skip_bytes

dd if=fip.bin of=${DEVSD}1 conv=notrunc,fsync

Next, copy the kernel/dtb to the partition2, and copy the rootfs files to partition3.

At last, use the SD card to boot the RDB3 for a trial.

BR

Chenyin

[pcentauri92]

Hi @chenyin_h ,

I am not tring to boot from SD card, I am trying to boot from NOR Flash. 

Also, I am not able to find the UG for BSP43.0. When I go to the BSP for S32 Microcontrollers and Processors  page and access the Automotive SW for S32G3 – Linux BSP link, it leads to a download page but the version available there is BSP23.0 as shown below

Could you please guide me to the proper link for the BSP43.0 UG?

Thanks.