Skip to main content

How To Load and Run Firmwares Into Alternative Cores (TI)

Introduction​

This article's goal is to guide you in the process of loading and running firmwares compiled with MCU+ SDK (Software Development Kit) into alternative cores.

This article complies with the typographic conventions.

Typographic Conventions

Throughout the Toradex documentation, the following typographic conventions are used:

$ (dollar sign) Command in the host computer (e.g. your PC)

$ Command in your PC

$$ (double dollar sign) Command in a container in the host computer (e.g. your PC)

$$ Command inside a container in your PC

# (hashtag) Command in the target device/board (e.g. Linux terminal)

# Command in the target board, e.g. Colibri iMX6

## (double hashtag) Command inside a container in the target device (Torizon)

## Command inside a container in Torizon

> (greater-than sign) Command in the bootloader (e.g. U-Boot console)

> Command in the Bootloader

No symbol: Command output

$ Command waiting for output
Output

Prerequisites​

  1. A module running Torizon OS or Linux BSP
  2. A terminal connected to the SoM
  3. The firmware to run on the alternative core (see How to Compile Firmwares for Alternative Cores (TI))

Loading and Running Firmwares​

Toradex recommends enabling the MCU UART overlay to enable debugging through a serial connection. If you are using Torizon, you can enable device tree overlays either with TorizonCore Builder or manually. For BSP reference images, see Enable/Disable a Device Tree Overlay for instructions on how to manage overlays.

info

In this article, ${SDK_INSTALL_PATH} refers to the path where the SDK is installed. For example, in Linux, ${SDK_INSTALL_PATH} refers to ${HOME}/ti/mcu_plus_sdk_{soc}_{version}/

Copy the firmware binary to the module using the scp command below, replacing the placeholder with your hostname, as explained in SSH - Connect Through Network.

$ scp ${SDK_INSTALL_PATH}/examples/hello_world/am62x-sk/m4fss0-0_freertos/ti-arm-clang/hello_world.release.out root@<hostname>:/home/torizon/am62-mcu-m4f0_0-fw

Next, copy the firmware to /lib/firmware, which is the directory where the driver looks for firmware files. Note that /lib is a symbolic link to /usr/lib, and /usr is mounted as read-only by default. Therefore, you must first remount /usr with read/write permissions before copying the firmware:

# sudo mount -o remount,rw /usr
# sudo mv am62-mcu-m4f0_0-fw /lib/firmware

You can now either reboot or start the firmware with echo start:

# sudo reboot

Or

# echo start | sudo tee /sys/class/remoteproc/remoteproc0/state
Send Feedback!