imxrt1020 EVK u-boot doesn't run.

[Giulio Benetti <giulio.benetti@benettiengineering.com>]

Hi Nicolas,

On 4/4/21 3:36 PM, Fabio Estevam wrote:
> Hi Nicol?s,
> 
> Adding Giulio in case he has any ideas.
> 
> On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 10:14 AM Nicol?s Muratore
> <nico.m.muratore@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi everybody, hope you are doing well, my name is Nicol?s Muratore from
>> Argentina, I'm doing I development under imxrt1020 EVK, I did test many
>> "bare metal" programs to run from SD and those work ok on this EVK, right
>> now I'm thinking to work with u-boot over imxrt1020 EVK, but I have
>> problems to boot the u-boot from SD, I've followed the entire procedure
>> from web page
>> https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/stable/board/freescale/imxrt1020-evk.html:
>>
>> I'm using Ubuntu 18.04 and gnu-arm-linux-gnueabi cross compiler.
>>
>> 1) I have installed the u-boot package with all dependencies and
>> gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi compiler.
>> 2) #sudo make mr proper
>> 3) #sudo make imxrt1020-evk_defconfig
>> 4) #sudo CROSS-COMPILE=arm-linu-gnueabi- make
>> 5) it compiles without errors, I can see the SPL file and u-boot.img, and
>> other related files, (I attached all output files to this email)..
>> 6) Copy files to SD: #sudo dd if=SPL of= /dev/sdb bs=1k seek=1 conv=notrunc
>> ; sync   // This process copy "SPL" file on SD card with no errors.
>> 7) Copy files to SD: #sudo dd if=u-boot.img of= /dev/sdb bs=1k seek=128
>> conv=notrunc ; sync   // This process copy "u-boot.img" file on SD card
>> with no errors.
>>
>> After the copy process I put the SD on the imxrt1020 EVK, the SW7 in 0110
>> (I have tested the EVK many times using "bare metal" and it is ok).
>>
>> I connect the USB console cable to the PC like I always do, but I can't see
>> anything, it seems to be that the u-boot doesn't run.
>>
>> Would you have any idea what is going on?

I've just entered debugging and two things came out:
1) in board/freescale/imxrt-1020-evk/imxrt1020-evk.c when calling 
spl_dram_init() there is some printf() inside that gets called, but that 
happens before calling preloader_console_init() that set serial up, so 
this is the reason why there is no output at all.
2) I've completely ignored(wrongly) having a timer and at that time 
u-boot allowed it getting a tick-count always at 0, so every delay 
called return immediatly with 0. This is not possible anymore and I need 
to finish writing gpt-timer driver I was writing.

So please let me finish that gpt-driver timer and I'll send patches to 
fix imxrt1020/50-evk.

>> I really appreciate your help, sorry to bother you, but I'm breaking my
>> mind thinking why this doesn't run on my EVK.
>>
>> Many thanks.

Best regards
and happy easter! :-)
-- 
Giulio Benetti
Benetti Engineering sas