AM62A Platforms

Introduction:

The AM62A SoC family is built on the K3 Multicore SoC architecture platform, providing a deep learning accelerator, multi-camera support with ISP, video transcoder and other BOM-saving integrations. The AM62A SoC enables cost-sensitive automotive applications including driver and in-cabin monitoring systems, next generation of eMirror system, as well as a broad set of industrial applications in Factory Automation, Building Automation, Robotics and more.

Some highlights of this SoC are:

Quad-Cortex-A53s (running up to 1.4GHz) in a single cluster.
Cortex-R5F for general-purpose or safety usage.
Deep Learning Accelerator with Single-core C7x Vector DSP with MMA (up to 1.0GHz).
Vision Processing Accelerator (VPAC) with a 315MPixel/s ISP (up to 5MP @ 60fps) supporting 16-bit RAW input with RGB-IR separation.
4K Video encoder and decoder for HEVC (Level 5.1 High-tier) and H.264 (Level 5.2) supporting upto 240MPixels/s and MJPEG encoder at 416MPixels/s
Single display with 24-bit RGB parallel (DPI) interface supporting upto 165Mhz pixel clock for 2K resolution.
Integrated Giga-bit Ethernet switch supporting up to a total of two external ports (TSN capable).
9xUARTs, 5xSPI, 6xI2C, 2xUSB2, 3xCAN-FD, 3x eMMC and SD, GPMC for NAND/FPGA connection, OSPI memory controller, 3xMcASP for audio, 1x CSI-RX-4L for Camera, eCAP/eQEP, ePWM, among other peripherals.
Dedicated Centralized System Controller for Security, Power, and Resource Management.
Multiple low power modes support, ex: Deep sleep, Standby, MCU-only, enabling battery powered system design.

More details can be found in the Technical Reference Manual: https://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/spruj16

Platform information:

https://www.ti.com/tool/SK-AM62A-LP

Boot Flow:

Below is the pictorial representation of boot flow:

Here TIFS acts as master and provides all the critical services. R5/A53 requests TIFS to get these services done as shown in the above diagram.

Sources:

Das U-Boot

source: https://source.denx.de/u-boot/u-boot.git

branch: master
Trusted Firmware-A (TF-A)

source: https://git.trustedfirmware.org/TF-A/trusted-firmware-a.git/

branch: master
Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment (OP-TEE)

source: https://github.com/OP-TEE/optee_os.git

branch: master
TI Firmware (TIFS, DM, SYSFW)

source: https://git.ti.com/git/processor-firmware/ti-linux-firmware.git

branch: ti-linux-firmware

Note

The TI Firmware required for functionality of the system can be one of the following combination (see platform specific boot diagram for further information as to which component runs on which processor):

TIFS - TI Foundational Security Firmware - Consists of purely firmware meant to run on the security enclave.

DM - Device Management firmware also called TI System Control Interface server (TISCI Server) - This component purely plays the role of managing device resources such as power, clock, interrupts, dma etc. This firmware runs on a dedicated or multi-use microcontroller outside the security enclave.

OR

SYSFW - System firmware - consists of both TIFS and DM both running on the security enclave.

Build procedure:

Setup the environment variables:

Generic environment variables
S/w Component	Env Variable	Description
All Software	CC32	Cross compiler for ARMv7 (ARM 32bit), typically arm-linux-gnueabihf-
All Software	CC64	Cross compiler for ARMv8 (ARM 64bit), typically aarch64-linux-gnu-
All Software	LNX_FW_PATH	Path to TI Linux firmware repository
All Software	TFA_PATH	Path to source of Trusted Firmware-A
All Software	OPTEE_PATH	Path to source of OP-TEE

Board specific environment variables
S/w Component	Env Variable	Description
U-Boot	UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXR	Defconfig for Cortex-R (Boot processor).
U-Boot	UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXA	Defconfig for Cortex-A (MPU processor).
Trusted Firmware-A	TFA_BOARD	Platform name used for building TF-A for Cortex-A Processor.
Trusted Firmware-A	TFA_EXTRA_ARGS	Any extra arguments used for building TF-A.
OP-TEE	OPTEE_PLATFORM	Platform name used for building OP-TEE for Cortex-A Processor.
OP-TEE	OPTEE_EXTRA_ARGS	Any extra arguments used for building OP-TEE.

Set the variables corresponding to this platform:

export CC32=arm-linux-gnueabihf-
export CC64=aarch64-linux-gnu-
export LNX_FW_PATH=path/to/ti-linux-firmware
export TFA_PATH=path/to/trusted-firmware-a
export OPTEE_PATH=path/to/optee_os

$ export UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXR=am62ax_evm_r5_defconfig
$ export UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXA=am62ax_evm_a53_defconfig
$ export TFA_BOARD=lite
$ # we dont use any extra TFA parameters
$ unset TFA_EXTRA_ARGS
$ export OPTEE_PLATFORM=k3-am62ax
$ # we dont use any extra OPTEE parameters
$ unset OPTEE_EXTRA_ARGS

Trusted Firmware-A:

# inside trusted-firmware-a source
make CROSS_COMPILE=$CC64 ARCH=aarch64 PLAT=k3 SPD=opteed $TFA_EXTRA_ARGS \
     TARGET_BOARD=$TFA_BOARD

OP-TEE:

# inside optee_os source
make CROSS_COMPILE=$CC32 CROSS_COMPILE64=$CC64 CFG_ARM64_core=y $OPTEE_EXTRA_ARGS \
      PLATFORM=$OPTEE_PLATFORM

U-Boot:

3.1 R5:

# inside u-boot source
make $UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXR
make CROSS_COMPILE=$CC32 BINMAN_INDIRS=$LNX_FW_PATH

3.2 A53:

# inside u-boot source
make $UBOOT_CFG_CORTEXA
make CROSS_COMPILE=$CC64 BINMAN_INDIRS=$LNX_FW_PATH \
       BL31=$TFA_PATH/build/k3/$TFA_BOARD/release/bl31.bin \
       TEE=$OPTEE_PATH/out/arm-plat-k3/core/tee-raw.bin

Note

It is also possible to pick up a custom DM binary by adding TI_DM argument pointing to the file. If not provided, it defaults to picking up the DM binary from BINMAN_INDIRS. This is only applicable to devices that utilize split firmware.

Target Images

In order to boot we need tiboot3.bin, tispl.bin and u-boot.img. Each SoC variant (GP, HS-FS, HS-SE) requires a different source for these files.

GP

tiboot3-am62ax-gp-evm.bin from step 3.1

tispl.bin_unsigned, u-boot.img_unsigned from step 3.2

HS-FS

tiboot3-am62ax-hs-fs-evm.bin from step 3.1

tispl.bin, u-boot.img from step 3.2

HS-SE

tiboot3-am62ax-hs-evm.bin from step 3.1

tispl.bin, u-boot.img from step 3.2

Image formats:

tiboot3.bin

tispl.bin

Switch Setting for Boot Mode

Boot Mode pins provide means to select the boot mode and options before the device is powered up. After every POR, they are the main source to populate the Boot Parameter Tables.

The following table shows some common boot modes used on AM62 platform. More details can be found in the Technical Reference Manual: https://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/spruj16 under the Boot Mode Pins section.

Boot Modes
Switch Label	SW2: 12345678	SW3: 12345678
SD	01000000	11000010
OSPI	00000000	11001110
EMMC	00000000	11010010
UART	00000000	11011100
USB DFU	00000000	11001010

For SW2 and SW1, the switch state in the “ON” position = 1.

Debugging U-Boot

See Common Debugging environment - OpenOCD: for detailed setup information.

Warning

OpenOCD support since: August 2023 (git master)

Until the next stable release of OpenOCD is available in your development environment’s distribution, it might be necessary to build OpenOCD from the source.

Integrated JTAG adapter/dongle: The board has a micro-USB connector labelled XDS110 USB or JTAG. Connect a USB cable to the board to the mentioned port.

Note

There are multiple USB ports on a typical board, So, ensure you have read the user guide for the board and confirmed the silk screen label to ensure connecting to the correct port.

To start OpenOCD and connect to the board

openocd -f board/ti_am62a7evm.cfg