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Kendryte K230 virt reference platform (``k230``)

docs/system/riscv/k230.rst

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Kendryte K230 virt reference platform (k230)

The k230 machine is compatible with the Kendryte K230 SDK.

The K230 is a chip from the AIoT SoC series made by Kendryte ® — a part of Canaan Inc. It uses a brand-new multi-heterogeneous unit accelerated computing structure.

This chip has 2 RISC-V computing cores and a new-generation KPU (Knowledge Process Unit) smart computing unit.

For more information, see https://www.kendryte.com/en/proDetail/230

Supported devices

The k230 machine supports the following devices:

  • 1 c908 cores (little core)
  • Core Local Interruptor (CLINT)
  • Platform-Level Interrupt Controller (PLIC)
  • 2 K230 Watchdog Timer
  • 5 UART

Boot options

The k230 machine supports K230 SDK boot through M-mode U-Boot, which then starts OpenSBI/Linux with bootm. It also supports direct Linux boot.

K230 SDK Linux kernels use T-HEAD C9xx private MAEE page table attributes. QEMU does not implement MAEE in the generic RISC-V MMU, so such kernels need to be built with standard RISC-V PTE bits before they can boot under QEMU.

Running

Direct Linux boot


This flow lets QEMU load OpenSBI, Linux, initrd, and DTB directly, without
running SDK U-Boot. The Linux Image must be rebuilt with standard RISC-V PTE
bits before running under QEMU.

.. code-block:: bash

   $ SDK=k230_sdk/output/k230_canmv_defconfig
   $ qemu-system-riscv64 -machine k230 \
      -kernel "$SDK/images/little-core/Image" \
      -dtb "/tmp/user-k230-qemu.dtb" \
      -initrd "$SDK/images/little-core/rootfs.cpio.gz" \
      -append "console=ttyS0,115200 earlycon=sbi cma=0" \
      -nographic

Direct boot uses the SDK little-core RAM layout for OpenSBI at
``0x08000000``, Linux at ``0x08200000``, and the DTB at ``0x0a000000``. The
initrd is placed by QEMU's generic RISC-V boot helper, and QEMU writes the
initrd range and kernel command line into ``/chosen``. The DTB passed with
``-dtb`` should be derived from ``$SDK/images/little-core/k230.dtb`` and must
describe that initrd location as usable memory and disable any devices that are
not emulated by this machine.

U-Boot boot
~~~~~~~~~~~

This flow starts SDK U-Boot in M-mode with ``-bios``. Until the SDK storage
path is modeled, place OpenSBI, Linux, initrd, and DTB in RAM with loader
devices and run ``bootm`` manually. The Linux Image must be rebuilt with
standard RISC-V PTE bits before running under QEMU.

.. code-block:: bash

   $ SDK=k230_sdk/output/k230_canmv_defconfig
   $ IMAGE=$SDK/images/little-core/Image
   $ INITRD=$SDK/images/little-core/rootfs.cpio.gz
   $ DTB=$SDK/images/little-core/k230.dtb
   $ FWJUMP_UIMAGE=/tmp/k230-fw-jump.uImage
   $ INITRD_END=$(printf "0x%x" $((0x0a100000 + $(stat -c %s "$INITRD"))))
   $ "$SDK/little/buildroot-ext/host/bin/mkimage" \
      -A riscv -O linux -T kernel -C none \
      -a 0x8000000 -e 0x8000000 -n opensbi \
      -d "$SDK/images/little-core/fw_jump.bin" "$FWJUMP_UIMAGE"
   $ qemu-system-riscv64 -machine k230 \
      -bios "$SDK/little/uboot/u-boot" \
      -device loader,file="$FWJUMP_UIMAGE",addr=0xc100000,force-raw=on \
      -device loader,file="$IMAGE",addr=0x8200000,force-raw=on \
      -device loader,file="$INITRD",addr=0xa100000,force-raw=on \
      -device loader,file="$DTB",addr=0xa000000,force-raw=on \
      -nographic

The loader addresses mirror the SDK ``k230_canmv_defconfig`` output. Read the
U-Boot addresses from the generated environment, and read the Linux RAM base
from the generated ``hw/k230.dts.txt``. This replaces the SDK storage and
decompression steps.

Press Enter to stop autoboot. At the U-Boot prompt, run these commands:

.. code-block:: bash

   K230# setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 earlycon=sbi cma=0
   K230# fdt addr 0xa000000
   K230# fdt resize 8192
   K230# fdt set /chosen linux,initrd-start <0x0 0xa100000>
   K230# fdt set /chosen linux,initrd-end <0x0 ${INITRD_END}>
   K230# fdt set /soc/sdhci0@91580000 status disabled
   K230# fdt set /soc/sdhci1@91581000 status disabled
   K230# bootm 0xc100000 - 0xa000000

Use ``setenv`` so ``bootm`` writes the kernel command line into
``/chosen/bootargs``. The ``fdt`` commands select the loaded DTB, add space for
edits, describe the initrd range in ``/chosen``, and disable SDHCI nodes because
this machine does not emulate those controllers yet. Replace ``${INITRD_END}``
with the host-calculated value above when typing the command. ``cma=0`` avoids
the SDK kernel reserving too much of the little-core memory window for initramfs
boot.