ARM BASE RevC AEMv8A Fixed Virtual Platforms

Overview

This board configuration will use ARM Fixed Virtual Platforms(FVP) to emulate a generic Armv8-A 64-bit hardware platform.

This configuration provides support for a generic Armv8-A 64-bit CPU and these devices:

  • GICv3 interrupt controller

  • ARM architected (Generic) timer

  • PL011 UART controller

Hardware

Supported Features

The following hardware features are supported:

Interface

Controller

Driver/Component

GICv3

on-chip

interrupt controller

PL011 UART

on-chip

serial port

ARM GENERIC TIMER

on-chip

system clock

SMSC_91C111

on-chip

ethernet device

The kernel currently does not support other hardware features on this platform.

Devices

System Clock

This board configuration uses a system clock frequency of 100 MHz.

Serial Port

This board configuration uses a single serial communication channel with the UART0.

Known Problems or Limitations

Programming and Debugging

Environment

First, set the ARMFVP_BIN_PATH environment variable before building. Optionally, set ARMFVP_EXTRA_FLAGS to pass additional arguments to the FVP.

export ARMFVP_BIN_PATH=/path/to/fvp/directory

Programming

Use this configuration to build basic Zephyr applications and kernel tests in the ARM FVP emulated environment, for example, with the Basic Synchronization sample:

# From the root of the zephyr repository
west build -b fvp_base_revc_2xaemv8a samples/synchronization

This will build an image with the synchronization sample app. Then you can run it with west build -t run.

Running Zephyr at EL1NS

In order to run Zephyr as EL1NS with CONFIG_ARMV8_A_NS, you’ll need a proper Trusted Firmware loaded in the FVP model.

The ARM TF-A for FVP can be used to run Zephyr as preloaded BL33 payload.

Checkout and Build the TF-A:

git clone https://git.trustedfirmware.org/TF-A/trusted-firmware-a.git --depth 1
cd trusted-firmware-a/
make PLAT=fvp PRELOADED_BL33_BASE="0x88000000" all fip

then export the ARMFVP_BL1_FILE and ARMFVP_FIP_FILE environment variables:

export ARMFVP_BL1_FILE=<path/to/tfa-a/build/fvp/release/bl1.bin>
export ARMFVP_FIP_FILE=<path/to/tfa-a/build/fvp/release/fip.bin>

Debugging

Refer to the detailed overview about Application Debugging.

Networking

References

  1. (ID070919) Arm® Architecture Reference Manual - Armv8, for Armv8-A architecture profile

  2. AArch64 Exception and Interrupt Handling

  3. https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/simulation-models/fixed-virtual-platforms