SAMA7D65-Curosity

SoC Features

The SAMA7D65 MPU is a high-performance ARM Cortex-A7 CPU-based embedded MPU running up to 1GHz.

The board allows evaluation of powerful peripherals for connectivity, audio and user interface applications, including MIPI-DSI and LVDS w/ 2D graphics, dual Gigabit Ethernet w/ TSN and CAN-FD.

The MPUs offer advanced security functions, like tamper detection, secure boot, secure key stoarge, TRNG, PUF as well as higher-performance crypto accelerators for AES and SHA.

Kit Information

Kit Overview

The SAMA7D65-Curiosity documents can be found on the microchip website, as following: Kit Overview

Access the console

The usual serial communication parameters are 115200 8-N-1 :

Access the console on DEBUG serial port

The serial console can be accessed from the DEBUG port with the help of a TTL-to-USB serial cable (marked as DEBUG J35).

Using DEBUG on TTL-to-USB connector (DEBUG J35)

• For Microsoft Windows users: Install the driver of your USB TTL serial cable.
• Be sure to connect a 3.3V compatible cable and identify its GND pin. Place it properly according to the silkscreen and connect the cable to the board (J35)
• For Microsoft Windows users: Identify the USB connection that is established, USB Serial Port should appear in Device Manager. The COMxx number will be used to configure the terminal emulator.
  • For Linux users: Identify the serial USB connection by monitoring the last lines of dmesg command. The /dev/ttyUSBx number will be used to configure the terminal emulator.
    usb 1-1.1.2: new full-speed USB device number 17 using ehci-pci
    usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0403, idProduct=6001
    usb 1-1.1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
    usb 1-1.1.2: Product: TTL232R-3V3 usb 1-1.1.2: Manufacturer: FTDI
    usb 1-1.1.2: SerialNumber: FTGNVZ04
    ftdi_sio 1-1.1.2:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
    usb 1-1.1.2: Detected FT232RL
    usb 1-1.1.2: Number of endpoints 2 usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
    usb 1-1.1.2: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64 usb 1-1.1.2: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
    usb 1-1.1.2: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0 
    A /dev/ttyUSB0 node has been created.

• Now open your favorite terminal emulator with appropriate settings

Demo

Demo archives

Media type Board Features Binary Description Yocto Project / Poky based demo SD Card image SAMA7D65 Curiosity Headless linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-ea-1.0.img.bz2 (~ 73 MB) md5: 930649f5ef961e3982858f379eb3440d Linux4SAM Yocto Project / Poky based demo compiled from tag linux4microchip+sama7d65-2024.10 Follow procedure: #Create_a_SD_card_with_the_demo Graphics linux4sam-poky-sama7d65_curiosity-graphics-sama7d65-ea-1.0.img.bz2 (~ 182 MB) md5: 759b6a503f168df380e275204226644a BuildRoot based demo SD Card image SAMA7D65 Curiosity Headless linux4sam-buildroot-sama7d65_curiosity-headless-sama7d65-ea-1.0.img.bz2 (~ 87 MB) md5: a2343e81464dfd96fbeadd826a226c54 Linux4SAM BuildRoot based demo compiled from tag linux4microchip+sama7d65-2024.10 Follow procedure: Create a SD card with the demo Graphics linux4sam-buildroot-sama7d65_curiosity-graphics-sama7d65-ea-1.0.img.bz2 (~ 191 MB) md5: aac6bd154fde3497b89b30a27a7188f8

Create a SD card with the demo

You need a 1 GB SD card (or more) and to download the image of the demo. The image is compressed to reduce the amount of data to download. This image contains:

• a FAT32 partition with the AT91Bootstrap, U-Boot and the Linux Kernel (zImage and dtb).
• an EXT4 partition for the rootfs.

Multi-platform procedure

To write the compressed image on the SD card, you will have to download and install balenaEtcher. This tool, which is an Open Source software, is useful since it allows to get a compressed image as input. More information and extra help available on the balenaEtcher website.

• Insert your SD card and launch Etcher:

1. Select the demo image. They are marked as "SD Card image" in the demo table above.
   Note that you can select a compressed image (like the demos available here). The tool is able to decompress files on the fly
2. Select the device corresponding to your SD card (Etcher proposes you the devices that are removable to avoid erasing your system disk)
3. Click on the Flash! button
4. On Linux, Etcher finally asks you to enter your root password because it needs access to the hardware (your SD card reader or USB to SD card converter)
5. then the flashing process begins followed by a verification phase (optional)

• Once writing done, Etcher asks you if you want to burn another demo image:

• Your SD card is ready!

Build From source code

Setup ARM Cross Compiler

• First step is to dowload the ARM GNU Toolchain:
  wget -c https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/13.2.rel1/binrel/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz

• Next step is to add the ARM GNU Toolchain into your system:

  tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
  export CROSS_COMPILE=`pwd`/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-

  or

  tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
  export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-
  export PATH=$PATH:/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.Rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/

Build AT91Bootstrap from sources

This section describes how to get source code from the git repository, how to configure with the default configuration, how to customize AT91Bootstrap based on the default configuration and finally to build AT91Bootstrap to produce the binary. take the default configuration to download U-Boot from NandFlash for example.

SAM-BA tool

SAM-BA tool is required to add a header in at91bootstrap image (for both manual compilation and through build-systems like Buildroot or Yocto Project). Download SAM-BA software with the following link: https://github.com/atmelcorp/sam-ba/releases/tag/v3.8

Uncompress the tgz file in your workspace with:

Make sure to add the sam-ba application to your $PATH and verify that you have the correct version:

Get AT91Bootstrap Source Code

You can easily download AT91Bootstrap source code on the at91bootstrap git repository.

To get the source code, you should clone the repository by doing:

Configure AT91Bootstrap

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

Assuming you are at the AT91Bootstrap root directory, you will find a configs folder which contains several default configuration files:

You can configure AT91Bootstrap to load U-Boot binary from SD Card by doing:

If the configuring process is successful, the .config file can be found at AT91Bootstrap root directory.

Customize AT91Bootstrap

If the default configuration doesn't meet your need, after configuring with the default configuration, you can customize it by doing:

Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features to/from AT91Bootstrap as the same way as kernel configuration.
Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

Build AT91Bootstrap

Then you can build the AT91Bootstrap binary by doing:

If the building process is successful, the final .bin image is build/binaries/boot-plaintextimg.bin. The boot-plaintextimg.bin, is the boot format to be used for booting the sama7d65 SoC.

Build U-Boot from sources

Getting U-Boot sources

Dedicated page on U-Boot wiki: http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/SourceCode

You can easily download U-Boot source code from Linux4SAM GitHub U-Boot repository:

Clone the Linux4sam GitHub U-Boot repository:

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

Cross-compiling U-Boot

Before compiling the U-Boot, you need setup cross compile toolchain in the section.

Once the AT91 U-Boot sources available, cross-compile U-Boot is made in two steps: configuration and compiling. Check the Configuration chapter in U-Boot reference manual.

The U-Boot environment variables can be stored in different media, below config files can specify where to store the U-Boot environment.

Here are the building steps for the SAMA7D65-Curiosity board:

The result of these operations is a fresh U-Boot binary called u-boot.bin corresponding to the binary ELF file u-boot.

• u-boot.bin is the file you should store on the board
• u-boot is the ELF format binary file you may use to debug U-Boot through a JTag link for instance.

Build Kernel from sources

Required packages

You must install essential host packages on your build host. These requirements are listed in the Linux kernel documentation with the chapter Install build requirements. You must follow this process which includes, but not limited to, the following packages:

• build-essential
• flex
• bison
• git
• perl-base
• libssl-dev
• libncurses5-dev
• libncursesw5-dev
• ncurses-dev

Getting Kernel sources

To get the source code, you have to clone the repository:

The source code has been taken from the master branch. You must switch to the specified tag by doing:

Setup ARM Cross Compiler

• First step is to dowload the ARM GNU Toolchain:
  wget -c https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/13.2.rel1/binrel/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz

• Next step is to add the ARM GNU Toolchain into your system:

  tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz export CROSS_COMPILE=`pwd`/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-

  or

  tar -xf arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
  export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-
  export PATH=$PATH:/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-13.2.Rel1-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/

  Information

  !Note: If you already have an old ARM GNU Toolchain need to clean up the PATH with:

  export PATH=${PATH/':/YOUR/PATH/TO/arm-gnu-toolchain-VERSION-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/'/}

  Configure and Build the Linux kernel

  Now you have to configure the Linux kernel according to your hardware. We have two default configuration at91 SoC in arch/arm/configs

  arch/arm/configs/at91_dt_defconfig
  arch/arm/configs/sama5_defconfig
  arch/arm/configs/sama7_defconfig

  • at91_dt_defconfig: for SAM9 (ARM926) series chips
  • sama5_defconfig: for SAMA5 series chips
  • sama7_defconfig: for SAMA7 series chips

  At this step, you can modify default configuration using the menuconfig

  $ make ARCH=arm menuconfig

  Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features. Once done, Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

  Build the Linux kernel image, before you build you need set up the cross compile toolchain, check this section.

  $ make ARCH=arm
  
  [..]
  
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/Image is ready
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready

  Now you have an usable compressed kernel image zImage.

  If you need an uImage you can run this additional step:

  make ARCH=arm uImage LOADADDR=0x20008000
  
  [..]
  
    Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready
    UIMAGE  arch/arm/boot/uImage
    Image Name:   Linux-6.6.23-linux4microchip-202
    Created:      Thu May 16 14:36:06 2024
    Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
    Data Size:    5221704 Bytes = 5099.32 KiB = 4.98 MiB
    Load Address: 20008000
    Entry Point:  20008000
    Kernel: arch/arm/boot/uImage is ready
  
  

  make ARCH=arm dtbs
  
  [..]
  
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sam9x60_curiosity.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sam9x60ek.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sam9x75_curiosity.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sam9x75eb.dtb  
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d27_som1_ek.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d29_curiosity.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d2_icp.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d2_ptc_ek.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama5d2_xplained.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama7d65_curiosity.dtb
    DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/microchip/at91-sama7g5ek.dtb
  
  [..]

  If the building process is successful, the final images can be found under arch/arm/boot/ directory.

  Build Yocto/Poky rootfs from sources

  Note that building an entire distribution is a long process. It also requires a big amount of free disk space.

  The support for Microchip AT91 SoC family is included in a particular Yocto Project layer: meta-atmel. The source for this layer are hosted on Linux4SAM GitHub account: https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel

  Building environment

  A step-by-step comprehensive installation is explained in the Yocto Project Quick Build. The following lines have to be considered as an add-on that is AT91 specific or that can facilitate your setup.

  Prerequisite

  Here are the reference pages for setting up a Yocto Project building environment: What You Need and How You Get It.

  Information

  add git-lfs to the package requirement list from whichever Linux distribution you use.

  For instance, on Ubuntu or debian, these packages need to be installed on your development host:

  sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core git-lfs diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
      build-essential chrpath socat cpio python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
      xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping python3-git python3-jinja2 libegl1-mesa libsdl1.2-dev \
      pylint3 xterm

  Step by step build procedure

  Information

  with this release, the meta-atmel layer supports Yocto Project templates, so make sure you create a new build environment using oe-init-build-env

  This layer provides support for Microchip microprocessors (aka AT91)
  ====================================================================
  
  For more information about the Microchip MPU product line see:
  http://www.microchip.com/design-centers/32-bit-mpus
  Linux & Open Source on Microchip microprocessors:
  http://www.linux4sam.org
  
  
  Supported SoCs / MACHINE names
  ==============================
  Note that most of the machine names below, have a SD Card variant that can be
  built by adding an "-sd" suffix to the machine name.
  - SAMA5D2 product family / sama5d2-xplained, sama5d2-xplained-emmc, sama5d27-som1-ek-sd, sama5d27-som1-ek-optee-sd, sama5d2-ptc-ek, sama5d2-icp, sama5d27-wlsom1-ek-sd, sama5d29-curiosity-sd
  - SAMA5D4 product family / sama5d4ek, sama5d4-xplained
  - SAMA5D3 product family / sama5d3xek, sama5d3-xplained
  - AT91SAM9x5 product family (AT91SAM9G15, AT91SAM9G25, AT91SAM9X25, AT91SAM9G35 and AT91SAM9X35) / at91sam9x5ek
  - AT91SAM9RL / at91sam9rlek
  - AT91SAM9G45 / at91sam9m10g45ek
  - SAM9X60 / sam9x60ek, sam9x60-curiosity
  - SAMA7G5 / sama7g5ek-sd, sama7g5ek-emmc, sama7g5ek-ospi
  - SAMA7D65 / sama7d65-curiosity
  - SAM9X75 / sam9x75eb, sam9x75-curiosity
  
  Sources
  =======
  - meta-atmel
  URI: https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel.git
  Tag: linux4microchip+sama7d65-2024.10
  
  Dependencies
  ============
  This Layer depends on :
  - poky
  URI: https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
  Branch: kirkstone
  Tag: yocto-4.0.17
  
  - meta-openembedded
  URI: https://git.openembedded.org/meta-openembedded
  Branch: kirkstone
  Tag/commit: 8bb16533532b6abc2eded7d9961ab2a108fd7a5b
  
  - meta-arm (for optee components)
  URI: https://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-arm
  Branch: kirkstone
  Tag: yocto-4.0.2
  
  Build procedure
  ===============
  
  0/ Create a directory
  mkdir my_dir
  cd my_dir
  
  1/ Clone yocto/poky git repository with the proper branch ready
  git clone https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky && cd poky && \
  git checkout -b kirkstone yocto-4.0.17 && cd -
  
  2/ Clone meta-openembedded git repository with the proper branch ready
  git clone git://git.openembedded.org/meta-openembedded && \
  cd meta-openembedded && git checkout -b kirkstone 8bb165 && cd -
  
  3/ Clone meta-atmel layer with the proper tag ready
  git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel.git && \
  cd meta-atmel && git checkout -b sama7d65 linux4microchip+sama7d65-2024.10 && cd -
  
  4/ Clone meta-arm layer with the proper branch ready
  git clone https://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-arm && cd meta-arm && \
  git checkout -b kirkstone yocto-4.0.2 && cd -
  
  5/ Enter the poky directory to configure the build system and start the build process
  cd poky
  If not created yet, add a new "build-microchip" directory:
  mkdir build-microchip
  Else, if it's the first time you use Yocto Project templates, and if the
  build-microchip directory remains from a previous use, we advise you to start
  from a fresh directory. Keep your build-microchip/conf/local.conf file for
  reference.
  
  6/ Inside the .templateconf file, you will need to modify the TEMPLATECONF
  variable to match the path to the meta-atmel layer "conf" directory:
  export TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-../meta-atmel/conf}
  
  7/ Initialize build directory
  source oe-init-build-env build-microchip
  
  8/ To build a small image provided by Yocto Project:
  [MACHINE=] bitbake core-image-minimal
  Example for sama7d65-curiosity-sd SD card image:
  MACHINE=sama7d65-curiosity-sd bitbake core-image-minimal
  
  9/ To build the microchip image with no graphics support:
  [MACHINE=] bitbake microchip-headless-image
  Example for sama7d65-curiosity-sd SD card image:
  MACHINE=sama7d65-curiosity-sd bitbake microchip-headless-image
  
  10/ To build the microchip image with graphics support (EGT):
  [MACHINE=] bitbake microchip-graphics-image
  Example for sama7d65-curiosity-sd SD card image:
  MACHINE=sama7d65-curiosity-sd bitbake microchip-graphics-image

  Once done building, the image will be in ./tmp/deploy/images/sama7d65-curioisty-*/*.wic

  How to build Buildroot for sama7d65

  Prerequisites

  Host build system should be a Linux system with necessary software installed: http://buildroot.uclibc.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#requirement

  Note You can install missing packages using yum install with Fedora or apt install with Ubuntu or Debian. These commands may require root privileges or being in a correct sudoers group.

  Get sources

  To get the source code, you have to clone the buildroot-at91 and buildroot-external-microchip repositories. buildroot-at91 is a fork of Buildroot with a minimal number of patches. The external tree provides changes which will not hit the mainline: additional defconfigs files and packages dedicated to our demos.

  $ git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/buildroot-at91.git -b 2024.02-mchp
  Cloning into 'buildroot-at91'...
  remote: Enumerating objects: 463728, done.
  remote: Counting objects: 100% (83926/83926), done.
  remote: Compressing objects: 100% (30247/30247), done.
  remote: Total 463728 (delta 53436), reused 83881 (delta 53426), pack-reused 379802
  Receiving objects: 100% (463728/463728), 102.44 MiB | 10.50 MiB/s, done.
  Resolving deltas: 100% (313672/313672), done.
  
  $ ls buildroot-at91/
  arch board boot CHANGES Config.in Config.in.legacy configs COPYING DEVELOPERS docs
  fs linux Makefile Makefile.legacy package README support system toolchain utils
  
  $ git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/buildroot-external-microchip.git
  Cloning into 'buildroot-external-microchip'...
  remote: Enumerating objects: 7753, done.
  remote: Counting objects: 100% (7753/7753), done.
  remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1634/1634), done.
  remote: Total 7753 (delta 5882), reused 7715 (delta 5844), pack-reused 0
  Receiving objects: 100% (7753/7753), 1.07 MiB | 5.91 MiB/s, done.
  Resolving deltas: 100% (5882/5882), done.
  $ cd buildroot-external-microchip/
  $ git checkout -b sama7d65 linux4microchip+sama7d65-2024.10
  Switched to a new branch 'sama7d65'
  $ cd ..
  
  $ ls buildroot-external-microchip/
  board Config.in configs COPYING
  README.md system
  docs
  external.desc
  external.mk
  package
  patches
  
  $ ls -1 buildroot-external-microchip/configs/sama7d65*
  configs/sama7d65_curiosity_graphics_defconfig
  configs/sama7d65_curiosity_headless_defconfig

  Build the rootfs image

  To build the the rootfs image that we provide for sama7d65 curiosity, you will have to execute from the directory where you cloned the required repository:

  $ cd buildroot-at91
  $ BR2_EXTERNAL=../buildroot-external-microchip/ make sama7d65_curiosity_graphics_defconfig
  $ make

  Once compilation is done, have a look to output/images directory to see what has been generated:

  $ ls -1 output/images/
  at91bootstrap.bin
  at91-sama7d65_curiosity.dtb
  boot.bin
  boot-plaintextimg.bin
  boot.vfat
  rootfs.ext2
  rootfs.ext4
  rootfs.tar
  sama7d65_curiosity_at25ff321a_click1.dtbo
  sama7d65_curiosity.itb
  sama7d65_curiosity.its
  sama7d65_curiosity_lvds.dtbo
  sama7d65_curiosity_mipi.dtbo
  sama7d65_curiosity_pwm.dtbo
  sama7d65_curiosity_tcb_pwm.dtbo
  sama7d65-sdcardboot-uboot-4.0.7.bin
  sama7d65-sdcardboot-uboot-4.0.7-sama7d65-ea.bin
  sama7d65-sdcardboot-uboot-4.0.7-sama7d65-ea-plaintextimg.bin
  sdcard.img
  u-boot.bin
  uboot-env.bin
  zImage

  All software components are there: booloaders, kernel, device tree and rootfs. The SD Card image ready to be flashed: sdcard.img

  Warning

  If you do a make clean, you will delete the rootfs but also the cross toolchain, redoing the whole process again will take time.

  Related Topics

  
  • SAMA7D65 ready-made Buildroot images & BSR.
  • How to use the Atmel KMS/DRM LCD driver
  • U-Boot FAQ
  • How to use U-boot with FIT image to load overlays. 
  • How to patch Device Tree Blob in U-boot using Overlays
  • Basic systemd user guide.
  • Thermal management support on SAMA7G5. 
  • Using the SAMA5D2-compatible ADC device.