hw/riscv: microchip_pfsoc: Support direct kernel boot

At present the Microchip Icicle Kit machine only supports using
'-bios' to load the HSS, and does not support '-kernel' for direct
kernel booting just like other RISC-V machines do. One has to use
U-Boot which is chain-loaded by HSS, to load a kernel for testing.
This is not so convenient.

Adding '-kernel' support together with the existing '-bios', we
follow the following table to select which payload we execute:

  -bios |    -kernel | payload
  ------+------------+--------
      N |          N | HSS
      Y | don't care | HSS
      N |          Y | kernel

This ensures backwards compatibility with how we used to expose
'-bios' to users. When '-kernel' is used for direct boot, '-dtb'
must be present to provide a valid device tree for the board,
as we don't generate device tree.

When direct kernel boot is used, the OpenSBI fw_dynamic BIOS image
is used to boot a payload like U-Boot or OS kernel directly.

Documentation is updated to describe the direct kernel boot. Note
as of today there is still no PolarFire SoC support in the upstream
Linux kernel hence the document does not include instructions for
that. It will be updated in the future.

Signed-off-by: Bin Meng <bin.meng@windriver.com>
Reviewed-by: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>
Message-id: 20210430071302.1489082-8-bmeng.cn@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Alistair Francis <alistair.francis@wdc.com>

1 files changed, 25 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/docs/system/riscv/microchip-icicle-kit.rst b/docs/system/riscv/microchip-icicle-kit.rst
index e803131763..54ced661e3 100644
--- a/docs/system/riscv/microchip-icicle-kit.rst
+++ b/docs/system/riscv/microchip-icicle-kit.rst
@@ -31,17 +31,37 @@ Boot options
 
 The ``microchip-icicle-kit`` machine can start using the standard -bios
 functionality for loading its BIOS image, aka Hart Software Services (HSS_).
-HSS loads the second stage bootloader U-Boot from an SD card. It does not
-support direct kernel loading via the -kernel option. One has to load kernel
-from U-Boot.
+HSS loads the second stage bootloader U-Boot from an SD card. Then a kernel
+can be loaded from U-Boot. It also supports direct kernel booting via the
+-kernel option along with the device tree blob via -dtb. When direct kernel
+boot is used, the OpenSBI fw_dynamic BIOS image is used to boot a payload
+like U-Boot or OS kernel directly.
+
+The user provided DTB should have the following requirements:
+
+* The /cpus node should contain at least one subnode for E51 and the number
+  of subnodes should match QEMU's ``-smp`` option
+* The /memory reg size should match QEMU’s selected ram_size via ``-m``
+* Should contain a node for the CLINT device with a compatible string
+  "riscv,clint0"
+
+QEMU follows below truth table to select which payload to execute:
+
+=====  ========== =======
+-bios     -kernel payload
+=====  ========== =======
+    N           N     HSS
+    Y  don't care     HSS
+    N           Y  kernel
+=====  ========== =======
 
 The memory is set to 1537 MiB by default which is the minimum required high
 memory size by HSS. A sanity check on ram size is performed in the machine
 init routine to prompt user to increase the RAM size to > 1537 MiB when less
 than 1537 MiB ram is detected.
 
-Boot the machine
-----------------
+Running HSS
+-----------
 
 HSS 2020.12 release is tested at the time of writing. To build an HSS image
 that can be booted by the ``microchip-icicle-kit`` machine, type the following