Creating a Debuggable First Stage Boot Loader

First Stage Boot Loader (FSBL) can initialize the SoC device, load the required application or data to memory, and launch applications on the target CPU core. An FSBL is provided in the Vitis platform project (if you enabled creating boot components while creating the platform project), but you are free to create additional FSBL applications as general applications for further modification or debugging purposes.

Enabling Detailed Prints in FSBL

If you desire more detailed information during the boot process, but are not planning to modify the FSBL source code, you can set FSBL to print more information - but it is not necessary to run FSBL in Vitis debugger. In this example, you will create an FSBL image targeted for Arm™ Cortex-A53 core 0 and update its properties to enable detailed print info.

  1. Launch the Vitis IDE if it is not already open.

  2. Set the Vitis workspace. For example, C:\edt\fsbl_debug_info.

  3. Select File → New → Application Project. The New Project dialog box opens.

  4. Use the information in the following table to make your selections in the New Project wizard:

Screen System Properties Settings
Platform Create a new platform from hardware (XSA)
XSA File zcu102
Platform Name zcu102
Generate boot components Uncheck
Application project details Application project name fsbl_a53
System project name fsbl_a53_system
Target processor psu_cortexa53_0
Domain Domain standalone_psu_cortexa53_0
Operating System standalone
Processor psu_cortexa53_0
Architecture 64-bit
Templates Available templates Zynq MP FSBL 
**Note:** To save build time, boot components are not created in this example. If the default FSBL is needed, check **Generate Boot Components**.

  1. Click Finish. The Vitis IDE creates the system project and the FSBL application.

By default, the FSBL is configured to show basic print messages. Next, you will modify the FSBL build settings to enable debug prints. For a list of the possible debug options for FSBL, refer to the src/xfsbl_debug.h file.

#if defined (FSBL_DEBUG_DETAILED)
#define XFsblDbgCurrentTypes ((DEBUG_DETAILED) | (DEBUG_INFO) | (DEBUG_GENERAL) | (DEBUG_PRINT_ALWAYS))
#elif defined (FSBL_DEBUG_INFO)
#define XFsblDbgCurrentTypes ((DEBUG_INFO) | (DEBUG_GENERAL) | (DEBUG_PRINT_ALWAYS))
#elif defined (FSBL_DEBUG)
#define XFsblDbgCurrentTypes ((DEBUG_GENERAL) | (DEBUG_PRINT_ALWAYS))
#elif defined (FSBL_PRINT)
#define XFsblDbgCurrentTypes (DEBUG_PRINT_ALWAYS)
#else
#define XFsblDbgCurrentTypes (0U)
#endif

Medium level verbose printing is good for most designs. Enable FSBL_DEBUG_INFO by performing the following steps:

  1. In the Explorer view, right-click the fsbl_a53 application.

  2. Click C/C++ Build Settings.

  3. Select Settings → ARM V8 gcc compiler → Symbols.

  4. Click the Add button.

    ../../../_images/image40.png

  5. Enter FSBL_DEBUG_INFO.

    ../../../_images/image41.png

    The symbol settings are as shown in the following figure.

    ../../../_images/image42.png

  6. Click OK to accept the changes and close the Settings view. Now that the symbol is defined, GCC will build the application with this symbol.

Stripping Out Unused Functions

The FSBL application is capable of performing numerous tasks. The tasks it executes are based on the user definition in header files. Some functions are not executed by default. GCC includes these functions into the compiled executable by default. Because FSBL runs on OCM, and OCM only has a capacity of 128 KB, unused functions must be stripped out to make FSBL fit into OCM. Run the following instructions to update the BSP compile settings to strip out unused functions:

  1. Double-click fsbl_a53.prj.

  2. Click the Navigate to the BSP settings button.

  3. Click the Modify BSP Settings… button.

  4. Under Overview → Drivers → psu_cortexa53_0 → extra_compiler_flags, edit extra_compiler_flags to append -Os -flto -ffat-lto-objects.

Building the Project

Right-click the fsbl_a53 application and select Build Project. The FSBL executable is now saved as fsbl_a53/debug/fsbl_a53.elf. In this tutorial, the application name fsbl_a53 is to identify that the FSBL is targeted for the APU (the Arm Cortex-A53 core).

Note: If the system design demands, FSBL can be targeted to run on the RPU.

Debugging FSBL Using the Vitis Debugger

Sometimes you need to modify FSBL source code to add more custom features. To debug these features, you need to run FSBL in Vitis debugger. This example guides you through the steps to run FSBL in Vitis debugger.

FSBL is built with size optimization and link time optimization flags (such as -Os). These optimizations reduce the memory footprint of FSBL but can make debugging difficult. Removing optimizations can lead to increased code size, which can result in FBSL build failure (because FSBL needs to run on the 128 KB OCM). Instead, these optimizations should be disabled for debugging purposes. To do this, some FSBL features should be disabled in the xfsbl_config.h file of the FSBL if they are not required.

Creating and Modifying FSBL

  1. Launch the Vitis IDE if it is not already open.

  2. Set the Vitis workspace. For example, C:\edt\fsbl_debuggable.

  3. Select File → New → Application Project. The New Project dialog box opens.

  4. Use the information in the following table to make your selections in the New Project wizard:

Screen System Properties Settings
Platform Create a new platform from hardware (XSA)
XSA File zcu102
Platform Name zcu102
Generate boot components Uncheck
Application project details Application project name fsbl_debug
System project name fsbl_debug_system
Target processor psu_cortexa53_0
Domain Domain standalone_psu_cortexa53_0
Operating System standalone
Processor psu_cortexa53_0
Architecture 64-bit
Templates Available templates Zynq MP FSBL

  1. Click Finish. The Vitis IDE creates the system project and the FSBL application.

Disabling Optimizations

  1. In the Explorer view, right-click the fsbl_debug application.

  2. Click C/C++ Build Settings.

  3. Select Settings→ Tool Settings page→ Arm v8 gcc Compiler→ Miscellaneous.

  4. Remove -flto -ffat-lto-objects from other flags, as shown below.

    ../../../_images/image53.png

  5. Similarly, the fsbl_debug_bsp needs to be modified. Right-click fsbl_debug_bsp and select Board Support Package Settings.

  6. Under Overview → Drivers → psu_cortexa53_0 → extra_compiler_flags, edit extra_compiler_flags to ensure extra compiler only has this value -g -Wall -Wextra -Os as shown below.

    ../../../_images/image54.png

  7. Click OK to save these settings. BSP rebuilds automatically after this.

  8. The next step is to remove unused functions to save code space. Go to the fsbl_debug→ src → fsbl_config.h file. In the FSBL code, include the options and disable the following:

    • #define FSBL_NAND_EXCLUDE_VAL (1U)

    • #define FSBL_SECURE_EXCLUDE_VAL (1U)

    • #define FSBL_SD_EXCLUDE_VAL (1U)

Note: ‘1’ is disable and ‘0’ is enable.

At this point, FSBL is ready to be debugged.

You can either debug the FSBL like any other standalone application, or debug FSBL as a part of a boot image by using the Attach to running target mode in System Debugger.

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