1 SiFive HiFive Unleashed (``sifive_u``)
2 ======================================
4 SiFive HiFive Unleashed Development Board is the ultimate RISC-V development
5 board featuring the Freedom U540 multi-core RISC-V processor.
10 The ``sifive_u`` machine supports the following devices:
13 * Up to 4 U54 / U34 cores
14 * Core Local Interruptor (CLINT)
15 * Platform-Level Interrupt Controller (PLIC)
16 * Power, Reset, Clock, Interrupt (PRCI)
17 * L2 Loosely Integrated Memory (L2-LIM)
18 * DDR memory controller
20 * 1 GEM Ethernet controller
22 * 1 One-Time Programmable (OTP) memory with stored serial number
25 * 1 ISSI 25WP256 flash
26 * 1 SD card in SPI mode
29 Please note the real world HiFive Unleashed board has a fixed configuration of
30 1 E51 core and 4 U54 core combination and the RISC-V core boots in 64-bit mode.
31 With QEMU, one can create a machine with 1 E51 core and up to 4 U54 cores. It
32 is also possible to create a 32-bit variant with the same peripherals except
33 that the RISC-V cores are replaced by the 32-bit ones (E31 and U34), to help
34 testing of 32-bit guest software.
36 Hardware configuration information
37 ----------------------------------
39 The ``sifive_u`` machine automatically generates a device tree blob ("dtb")
40 which it passes to the guest, if there is no ``-dtb`` option. This provides
41 information about the addresses, interrupt lines and other configuration of
42 the various devices in the system. Guest software should discover the devices
43 that are present in the generated DTB instead of using a DTB for the real
44 hardware, as some of the devices are not modeled by QEMU and trying to access
45 these devices may cause unexpected behavior.
47 If users want to provide their own DTB, they can use the ``-dtb`` option.
48 These DTBs should have the following requirements:
50 * The /cpus node should contain at least one subnode for E51 and the number
51 of subnodes should match QEMU's ``-smp`` option
52 * The /memory reg size should match QEMU’s selected ram_size via ``-m``
53 * Should contain a node for the CLINT device with a compatible string
54 "riscv,clint0" if using with OpenSBI BIOS images
59 The ``sifive_u`` machine can start using the standard -kernel functionality
60 for loading a Linux kernel, a VxWorks kernel, a modified U-Boot bootloader
61 (S-mode) or ELF executable with the default OpenSBI firmware image as the
62 -bios. It also supports booting the unmodified U-Boot bootloader using the
63 standard -bios functionality.
65 Machine-specific options
66 ------------------------
68 The following machine-specific options are supported:
72 The board serial number. When not given, the default serial number 1 is used.
74 SiFive reserves the first 1 KiB of the 16 KiB OTP memory for internal use.
75 The current usage is only used to store the serial number of the board at
76 offset 0xfc. U-Boot reads the serial number from the OTP memory, and uses
77 it to generate a unique MAC address to be programmed to the on-chip GEM
78 Ethernet controller. When multiple QEMU ``sifive_u`` machines are created
79 and connected to the same subnet, they all have the same MAC address hence
80 it creates an unusable network. In such scenario, user should give different
81 values to serial= when creating different ``sifive_u`` machines.
85 When given, QEMU's ROM codes jump to QSPI memory-mapped flash directly.
86 Otherwise QEMU will jump to DRAM or L2LIM depending on the msel= value.
87 When not given, it defaults to direct DRAM booting.
91 Mode Select (MSEL[3:0]) pins value, used to control where to boot from.
93 The FU540 SoC supports booting from several sources, which are controlled
94 using the Mode Select pins on the chip. Typically, the boot process runs
95 through several stages before it begins execution of user-provided programs.
96 These stages typically include the following:
98 1. Zeroth Stage Boot Loader (ZSBL), which is contained in an on-chip mask
99 ROM and provided by QEMU. Note QEMU implemented ROM codes are not the
100 same as what is programmed in the hardware. The QEMU one is a simplified
101 version, but it provides the same functionality as the hardware.
102 2. First Stage Boot Loader (FSBL), which brings up PLLs and DDR memory.
104 3. Second Stage Boot Loader (SSBL), which further initializes additional
105 peripherals as needed. This is U-Boot proper combined with an OpenSBI
106 fw_dynamic firmware image.
108 msel=6 means FSBL and SSBL are both on the QSPI flash. msel=11 means FSBL
109 and SSBL are both on the SD card.
114 Linux mainline v5.10 release is tested at the time of writing. To build a
115 Linux mainline kernel that can be booted by the ``sifive_u`` machine in
116 64-bit mode, simply configure the kernel using the defconfig configuration:
121 $ export CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-
125 To boot the newly built Linux kernel in QEMU with the ``sifive_u`` machine:
129 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u -smp 5 -m 2G \
130 -display none -serial stdio \
131 -kernel arch/riscv/boot/Image \
132 -initrd /path/to/rootfs.ext4 \
133 -append "root=/dev/ram"
135 Alternatively, we can use a custom DTB to boot the machine by inserting a CLINT
136 node in fu540-c000.dtsi in the Linux kernel,
140 clint: clint@2000000 {
141 compatible = "riscv,clint0";
142 interrupts-extended = <&cpu0_intc 3 &cpu0_intc 7
143 &cpu1_intc 3 &cpu1_intc 7
144 &cpu2_intc 3 &cpu2_intc 7
145 &cpu3_intc 3 &cpu3_intc 7
146 &cpu4_intc 3 &cpu4_intc 7>;
147 reg = <0x00 0x2000000 0x00 0x10000>;
150 with the following command line options:
154 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u -smp 5 -m 8G \
155 -display none -serial stdio \
156 -kernel arch/riscv/boot/Image \
157 -dtb arch/riscv/boot/dts/sifive/hifive-unleashed-a00.dtb \
158 -initrd /path/to/rootfs.ext4 \
159 -append "root=/dev/ram"
161 To build a Linux mainline kernel that can be booted by the ``sifive_u`` machine
162 in 32-bit mode, use the rv32_defconfig configuration. A patch is required to
163 fix the 32-bit boot issue for Linux kernel v5.10.
168 $ export CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-
169 $ curl https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-riscv/patch/20201219001356.2887782-1-atish.patra@wdc.com/mbox/ > riscv.patch
171 $ make rv32_defconfig
174 Replace ``qemu-system-riscv64`` with ``qemu-system-riscv32`` in the command
175 line above to boot the 32-bit Linux kernel. A rootfs image containing 32-bit
176 applications shall be used in order for kernel to boot to user space.
178 Running VxWorks kernel
179 ----------------------
181 VxWorks 7 SR0650 release is tested at the time of writing. To build a 64-bit
182 VxWorks mainline kernel that can be booted by the ``sifive_u`` machine, simply
183 create a VxWorks source build project based on the sifive_generic BSP, and a
184 VxWorks image project to generate the bootable VxWorks image, by following the
185 BSP documentation instructions.
187 A pre-built 64-bit VxWorks 7 image for HiFive Unleashed board is available as
188 part of the VxWorks SDK for testing as well. Instructions to download the SDK:
192 $ wget https://labs.windriver.com/downloads/wrsdk-vxworks7-sifive-hifive-1.01.tar.bz2
193 $ tar xvf wrsdk-vxworks7-sifive-hifive-1.01.tar.bz2
194 $ ls bsps/sifive_generic_1_0_0_0/uboot/uVxWorks
196 To boot the VxWorks kernel in QEMU with the ``sifive_u`` machine, use:
200 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u -smp 5 -m 2G \
201 -display none -serial stdio \
202 -nic tap,ifname=tap0,script=no,downscript=no \
203 -kernel /path/to/vxWorks \
204 -append "gem(0,0)host:vxWorks h=192.168.200.1 e=192.168.200.2:ffffff00 u=target pw=vxTarget f=0x01"
206 It is also possible to test 32-bit VxWorks on the ``sifive_u`` machine. Create
207 a 32-bit project to build the 32-bit VxWorks image, and use exact the same
208 command line options with ``qemu-system-riscv32``.
213 U-Boot mainline v2021.07 release is tested at the time of writing. To build a
214 U-Boot mainline bootloader that can be booted by the ``sifive_u`` machine, use
215 the sifive_unleashed_defconfig with similar commands as described above for
220 $ export CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-
221 $ export OPENSBI=/path/to/opensbi-riscv64-generic-fw_dynamic.bin
222 $ make sifive_unleashed_defconfig
224 You will get spl/u-boot-spl.bin and u-boot.itb file in the build tree.
226 To start U-Boot using the ``sifive_u`` machine, prepare an SPI flash image, or
227 SD card image that is properly partitioned and populated with correct contents.
228 genimage_ can be used to generate these images.
230 A sample configuration file for a 128 MiB SD card image is:
234 $ cat genimage_sdcard.cfg
242 partition u-boot-spl {
243 image = "u-boot-spl.bin"
245 partition-type-uuid = 5B193300-FC78-40CD-8002-E86C45580B47
251 partition-type-uuid = 2E54B353-1271-4842-806F-E436D6AF6985
255 SPI flash image has slightly different partition offsets, and the size has to
256 be 32 MiB to match the ISSI 25WP256 flash on the real board:
260 $ cat genimage_spi-nor.cfg
268 partition u-boot-spl {
269 image = "u-boot-spl.bin"
271 partition-type-uuid = 5B193300-FC78-40CD-8002-E86C45580B47
277 partition-type-uuid = 2E54B353-1271-4842-806F-E436D6AF6985
281 Assume U-Boot binaries are put in the same directory as the config file,
282 we can generate the image by:
286 $ genimage --config genimage_<boot_src>.cfg --inputpath .
288 Boot U-Boot from SD card, by specifying msel=11 and pass the SD card image
289 to QEMU ``sifive_u`` machine:
293 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u,msel=11 -smp 5 -m 8G \
294 -display none -serial stdio \
295 -bios /path/to/u-boot-spl.bin \
296 -drive file=/path/to/sdcard.img,if=sd
298 Changing msel= value to 6, allows booting U-Boot from the SPI flash:
302 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u,msel=6 -smp 5 -m 8G \
303 -display none -serial stdio \
304 -bios /path/to/u-boot-spl.bin \
305 -drive file=/path/to/spi-nor.img,if=mtd
307 Note when testing U-Boot, QEMU automatically generated device tree blob is
308 not used because U-Boot itself embeds device tree blobs for U-Boot SPL and
309 U-Boot proper. Hence the number of cores and size of memory have to match
310 the real hardware, ie: 5 cores (-smp 5) and 8 GiB memory (-m 8G).
312 Above use case is to run upstream U-Boot for the SiFive HiFive Unleashed
313 board on QEMU ``sifive_u`` machine out of the box. This allows users to
314 develop and test the recommended RISC-V boot flow with a real world use
315 case: ZSBL (in QEMU) loads U-Boot SPL from SD card or SPI flash to L2LIM,
316 then U-Boot SPL loads the combined payload image of OpenSBI fw_dynamic
317 firmware and U-Boot proper.
319 However sometimes we want to have a quick test of booting U-Boot on QEMU
320 without the needs of preparing the SPI flash or SD card images, an alternate
321 way can be used, which is to create a U-Boot S-mode image by modifying the
322 configuration of U-Boot:
326 $ export CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-
327 $ make sifive_unleashed_defconfig
330 then manually select the following configuration:
332 * Device Tree Control ---> Provider of DTB for DT Control ---> Prior Stage bootloader DTB
334 and unselect the following configuration:
336 * Library routines ---> Allow access to binman information in the device tree
338 This changes U-Boot to use the QEMU generated device tree blob, and bypass
339 running the U-Boot SPL stage.
341 Boot the 64-bit U-Boot S-mode image directly:
345 $ qemu-system-riscv64 -M sifive_u -smp 5 -m 2G \
346 -display none -serial stdio \
347 -kernel /path/to/u-boot.bin
349 It's possible to create a 32-bit U-Boot S-mode image as well.
353 $ export CROSS_COMPILE=riscv64-linux-
354 $ make sifive_unleashed_defconfig
357 then manually update the following configuration in U-Boot:
359 * Device Tree Control ---> Provider of DTB for DT Control ---> Prior Stage bootloader DTB
360 * RISC-V architecture ---> Base ISA ---> RV32I
361 * Boot options ---> Boot images ---> Text Base ---> 0x80400000
363 and unselect the following configuration:
365 * Library routines ---> Allow access to binman information in the device tree
367 Use the same command line options to boot the 32-bit U-Boot S-mode image:
371 $ qemu-system-riscv32 -M sifive_u -smp 5 -m 2G \
372 -display none -serial stdio \
373 -kernel /path/to/u-boot.bin
375 .. _genimage: https://github.com/pengutronix/genimage