BeagleBoardNAND

This page is about using (booting/running from) NAND memory on BeagleBoard. Parts of this page are inspired by Steve's flash procedure document.

=Hardware=

OMAP3530 has 256MB NAND flash in PoP (PoP: Package-On-Package implementation for Memory Stacking) configuration.


 * BeagleBoard has 256MB of Micron NAND
 * EVM 128MB of Samsung OneNAND
 * Zoom MDK also uses the Micron NAND

=Software=

The following software parts can be stored and booted/run from NAND:


 * X-Loader
 * U-Boot (+ environment/configuration data)
 * Linux kernel
 * Linux file system

The memory partitioning for this as used on BeagleBoard:

0x00000000-0x00080000 : "X-Loader" 0x00080000-0x00260000 : "U-Boot" 0x00260000-0x00280000 : "U-Boot Env" 0x00280000-0x00680000 : "Kernel" 0x00680000-0x10000000 : "File System"

To be able to write something to (empty) NAND, you first need to boot from an other source, e.g. MMC/SD card boot. Besides the files you need for MMC/SD card boot (MLO & U-Boot), put the files you want to flash into first FAT partition of MMC/SD card, too. Then you can read them from there and write them to NAND.

Note: If something goes wrong writing the initial X-Loader, your board might not boot any more without pressing the user button. See BeagleBoard recovery article how to fix this, then.

X-Loader
Build or download binary (x-load.bin.ift_for_NAND) X-Loader. Put it at first (boot) FAT partition of MMC/SD card and boot from card. Then start boot from card and use the following to write X-Loader to NAND:

...40T....... Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.41 Starting on with MMC Reading boot sector 147424 Bytes Read from MMC Starting OS Bootloader from MMC... U-Boot 1.3.3-00411-g76fe13c-dirty (Jul 12 2008 - 17:12:05) OMAP3530-GP rev 2, CPU-OPP2 L3-165MHz OMAP3 Beagle Board + LPDDR/NAND DRAM: 128 MB NAND:  256 MiB In:   serial Out:  serial Err:  serial Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0 OMAP3 beagleboard.org # mmcinit OMAP3 beagleboard.org # fatload mmc 0:1 80000000 x-load.bin.ift_for_NAND reading x-load.bin.ift_for_NAND 9808 bytes read OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand unlock device 0 whole chip nand_unlock: start: 00000000, length: 268435456! NAND flash successfully unlocked OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand ecc hw OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand erase 0 80000 NAND erase: device 0 offset 0x0, size 0x80000 Erasing at 0x60000 -- 100% complete. OK OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand write 80000000 0 80000 NAND write: device 0 offset 0x0, size 0x80000 524288 bytes written: OK OMAP3 beagleboard.org #

Note: The command nand ecc hw is essential here! X-Loader is started by OMAP3 boot rom. This uses HW ECC while reading the NAND, so while writing, we have to use OMAP3 HW ECC, too. If you don't use HW ECC boot rom can't boot from NAND any more.

U-Boot
Build or download binary (flash-uboot.bin) U-Boot. Put it at first (boot) FAT partition of MMC/SD card and boot from card. Then start boot from card and use the following to write U-Boot to NAND:

OMAP3 beagleboard.org # mmcinit OMAP3 beagleboard.org # fatload mmc 0:1 80000000 u-boot.bin reading u-boot.bin 147424 bytes read OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand unlock device 0 whole chip nand_unlock: start: 00000000, length: 268435456! NAND flash successfully unlocked OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand erase 80000 160000 NAND erase: device 0 offset 0x80000, size 0x160000 Erasing at 0x1c0000 -- 100% complete. OK OMAP3 beagleboard.org # nand write 80000000 80000 160000 NAND write: device 0 offset 0x80000, size 0x160000 1441792 bytes written: OK OMAP3 beagleboard.org #

Note: You can use the same u-boot.bin you use to boot from MMC/SD card for NAND. There are no differences between U-Boot used for MMC/SD card boot and NAND boot.

Note: Here, you don't need the nand ecc hw option. X-Loader which loads & starts U-Boot is able to understand SW ECC written by U-Boot.

Kernel
tbd.

File system
tbd.