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Flashing images on Renesas R-Car S4

Flashing images on Renesas R-Car S4

To flash AutoSD onto your R-Car S4 board, download the Renesas boot firmware and AutoSD board support package, host the AutoSD image on a TFTP server, and configure your board to communicate with the server.

Installing the boot firmware

To install the boot firmware for the R-Car S4, download and install the Renesas boot firmware files and the CentOS Stream Automotive Special Interest Group (SIG) board support package from COPR.

Getting Renesas firmware

To install the boot firmware for the R-Car S4, download the startup guide, Tera Term macros, and boot firmware files from the R-Car S4 support page. These files are in the Software Downloads section and require login credentials from Renesas.

Prerequisites

  • Access to the Renesas R-Car S4 support page
  • A workstation PC configured with a TFTP server
  • A network connection between the PC and the R-Car S4 board

Procedure

  1. Download the Startup Guide zip file, R-Car S4 SDK Start Up Guide PKG v3.16.8.

    1. Extract the R-CarS4_SDK_StartupGuide_3.16.8.zip file from the archive. This archive has the R-CarS4_SDK_StartupGuide.pdf guide and the teratermmacro folder.

  2. Download the firmware files from R-Car S4 SDK Linux PKG with GCC compiler v3.16.8.

    1. Download xOS3_SDK1_Linux_ReferenceSDK1_v3.16.8_release.zip.

    2. Unpack the archive, then unpack the included rcar-xos_sdk1-gateway_v3.16.8_release.tar.gz file. The boot firmware is located in the rcar-xos/v3.16.8/os/bootloader/s4 directory.

  3. To install the firmware, follow the instructions in section 18 of the R-CarS4_SDK_StartupGuide.pdf, "How to flash images."

Installing the automotive board support package

Install u-boot with abootimg support from the board support package.

Procedure

  1. Download the binary RPM file from the latest COPR build (for example, renesas-uboot-images-armv8-2010.10-5.1.1.rc9.2.4.el9.aarch64.rpm).

  2. Extract the u-boot.bin file from the RPM file by using the following command or by using a similar tool:

    console rpm2cpio filename | cpio -id

  3. Place the u-boot.bin file on the TFTP server.

  4. Enter the U-Boot command line and set up networking per the instructions in Configuring networking in U-Boot.

  5. Load the u-boot.bin file, and write it to flash memory by using the following commands:

    console mmc dev 0 1 mw.b 0x48000000 0 40000 tftp 0x48000000 u-boot.bin mmc write 0x48000000 7C00 0x502

    Important

    Confirm that the file and the size is correct. The 0x502 corresponds to the 512 byte blocks of the u-boot.bin file size.

  6. Reboot the board by using the reset command.

  7. Verify that the U-Boot version command returns the version matching the RPM release (for example, U-Boot 2020.10-5.1.1.rc9.2.4.el9).

Installing the AutoSD Image

To flash AutoSD onto your R-Car S4 board, you must host the AutoSD image on a TFTP server and configure the board to communicate with the server.

Prerequisites

  • Installed and functional boot firmware
  • A workstation PC configured with a TFTP server
  • A network connection between the PC and the R-Car S4 board
Configuring networking in U-Boot

Configure networking on your R-Car S4 so that the board can communicate with the TFTP server that hosts your AutoSD image.

Procedure

  1. Connect port 1 of the 3 ports on the Ethernet subboard.

Note

Identify port 1 from the printed circuit board (PCB) label (silkscreen) next to the connector. Of the three connectors labeled CN101, CN201, and CN301, port 1 is CN101. When you examine the RJ45 connector side of the board, port 1 is located further from the other 2 ports and on the right.

  1. Set the networking environment variables:

    console $ setenv ethaddr __<xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx>__ $ setenv ipaddr 192.168.0.20 $ setenv netmask 255.255.255.0 $ setenv serverip 192.168.0.1 $ saveenv

    Insert values that match the values for your network setup:

    • ethaddr specifies the MAC address from the sticker attached to the Ethernet connector
    • ipaddr specifies the IP address of the S4 board
    • netmask specifies the standard netmask
    • serverip specifies the IP address of the PC hosting the TFTP server
Building the image

To build AutoSD images, use the automotive-image-builder tool. See Installing Automotive Image Builder for installation instructions.

After you install the automotive-image-builder tool, download the rcar_s4.ipp.yml configuration file for the Renesas R-Car S4 board, which is located in the targets directory of the automotive-image-builder repository.

Prerequisites

  • A Fedora, CentOS, or RHEL system running on an AArch64 architecture
  • gzip
  • A workstation PC configured with a TFTP server

Procedure

  1. Build the R-Car S4 AutoSD image, replacing <manifest> with your custom Automotive Image Builder manifest file in the .aib.yml format:

    console $ automotive-image-builder build \ --container \ --target rcar_s4 \ --mode package \ --export image \ <manifest> .

    Note

    If you do not have your own manifest file, you can build an AutoSD image by using the example manifest file from sample-images.

  2. Compress the image:

    console gzip cs9-rcar_s4-developer-regular.aarch64.img cs9-rcar_s4-developer-regular.aarch64.img.gz

  3. Place this image onto your TFTP server.

Flashing the image

To flash the AutoSD image onto your R-Car S4, you must copy the image from your TFTP server onto your board.

Prerequisites

  • A workstation PC configured with a TFTP server that hosts your AutoSD image
  • A network connection between the PC and the R-Car S4 board

Procedure

  1. Download the image file to 0x480000000:

    console $ tftp 0x480000000 cs9-rcar_s4-developer-regular.aarch64.img.gz

  2. Copy the image to the MMC device 0:

    console $ gzwrite mmc 0 0x480000000 ${filesize} 1000000 0

Configuring U-Boot to boot the image

To boot the AutoSD image, you must configure U-Boot on the R-Car S4 to boot from the image.

Prerequisites

  • An AutoSD image on MMC device 0

Procedure

  1. Set the bootcmd environment variable to load AutoSD and start AutoSD from the MMC device:

    console setenv bootcmd 'mmc dev 0; part start mmc 0 boot_a boot_start; part size mmc 0 boot_a boot_size; mmc read $loadaddr $boot_start $boot_size; abootimg get dtb --index=0 dtb0_start dtb0_size; setenv bootargs androidboot.slot_suffix=_a; bootm $loadaddr $loadaddr $dtb0_start' saveenv

  2. To boot into AutoSD immediately, reset the board using the reset command.

  3. To start the boot process manually, use the run bootcmd command.

Additional Resources