Arm Cortex-A9 Processor Boot Code - 2023.1 English

The boot code performs minimum configuration which is required for an application to run starting from processor reset state of the processor. Below is a sequence illustrating what all configuration is performed before control reaches to main function.

1. Program vector table base for exception handling
2. Invalidate instruction cache, data cache and TLBs
3. Program stack pointer for various modes (IRQ, FIQ, supervisor, undefine, abort, system)
4. Configure MMU with short descriptor translation table format and program base address of translation table
5. Enable data cache, instruction cache and MMU
6. Enable Floating point unit
7. Transfer control to _start which clears BSS sections, initializes global timer and runs global constructor before jumping to main application

None.

The translation_table.S contains a static page table required by MMU for cortex-A9. This translation table is flat mapped (input address = output address) with default memory attributes defined for zynq architecture. It utilizes short descriptor translation table format with each section defining 1 MB of memory.

The overview of translation table memory attributes is described below.

For region 0x00000000 - 0x3FFFFFFF, a system where DDR is less than 1 GB, region after DDR and before PL is marked as undefined/reserved in translation table. In 0xF8000000 - 0xF8FFFFFF, 0xF8000C00 - 0xF8000FFF, 0xF8010000 - 0xF88FFFFF and 0xF8F03000 to 0xF8FFFFFF are reserved but due to granual size of 1 MB, it is not possible to define separate regions for them. For region 0xFFF00000 - 0xFFFFFFFF, 0xFFF00000 to 0xFFFB0000 is reserved but due to 1MB granual size, it is not possible to define separate region for it.