Trouble booting from FlexSPI in iMX8QXP

[MJames]

Hi,

I am working on a custom board using i.MX 8QuadXPlus. I am facing an issue with booting from FlexSPI NOR flash (2MB). 

I built the flash image for SPI using Mkimage (imx-mkimage-lf-5.15.32_2.0.0). Here is the command I used:

make REV=C0 SOC=iMX8QX flash_flexspi

Then I tried copying it to the locations 0x400 (Ref. IMX8DQXPRM Rev. 0, 05/2020, Section 5.8.3.3: FlexSPI configuration parameters) and later to 0x1000 (Ref. https://community.nxp.com/t5/i-MX-Processors-Knowledge-Base/i-MX8-Boot-process-and-creating-a-bootab...).

In either of the cases, it didn't work. Is there any other location where the image is to be copied? This was tried using diskdump after booting up Linux from eMMC.

Also, I have a doubt regarding the UUU tool. What should be the command to flash the image for FlexSPI boot? I saw something like this:

uuu -b qspi flash.bin. (Ref. IMXLUG Rev. LF6.1.36_2.1.0— 29 September 2023, Section 4.2.2)

But we do not have qspi. What should be the command in that case? I have already tried the above command, but it didn't work.

@jeremyzhou @Sanket_Parekh @igorpadykov Could you please look into this?

[hector_delgado]

Hi @MJames ,

I hope you're doing well! 

Please review UUU's documentation (https://github.com/nxp-imx/mfgtools/releases/download/uuu_1.5.125/UUU.pdf) section 2 Syntactic:

qspi -> burn boot loader to qspi nor flash
        arg0: _flexspi.bin bootloader
        arg1: _image[Optional] image burn to flexspi, default is the same ←-
        as bootloader

Hope this was of any help.

Best regards,
Hector.

[MJames]

Hi @hector_delgado

Thank you for the reply. I tried the command for qspi in the UUU documentation. But the issue still persists.

I have another doubt. If my SPI-Flash is connected to LPSPI, can I use it for booting? 

[hector_delgado]

Hi @MJames ,

I hope you're doing well and sorry for the late reply.

What version of UUU are you using? When flashing does it seem like it was done successfully or are there any errors/unexpected behavior? 

Best regards,
Hector.

[MJames]

Hi @hector_delgado

No worries!

The issue is not resolved yet. Can you please confirm if booting from LPSPI is supported?

The UUU version is lib1.4.193

I can't recall the outcome of flashing and I am unable to try that right now. 

Regards,

MJames

[hector_delgado]

Hi @MJames ,

Sorry for the late reply.

LPSPI isn't supported as a boot device for the i.MX8QXP (please refer to 5.8 Boot Devices from the i.MX 8DualX/8DualXPlus/8QuadXPlus Applications Processor Reference Manual for all supported boot devices https://www.nxp.com/webapp/Download?colCode=IMX8DQXPRM).

Regarding issues booting from FSPI please double check the boot mode:

Also, double check that when flashing with UUU, your device is in serial download mode. It'd be of great help if you could provide more details about possible failure during flashing process in order to further troubleshoot this issue. I'd also recommend (if you haven't checked them out before) reviewing the Reference Manual for the 8QXP (Section 5.8.3 FlexSPI serial flash memory boot, and subsequent sections).

Best regards,
Hector.