AMD Versal Virt (amd-versal-virt, amd-versal2-virt)

AMD Versal is a family of heterogeneous multi-core SoCs (System on Chip) that combine traditional hardened CPUs and I/O peripherals in a Processing System (PS) with runtime programmable FPGA logic (PL) and an Artificial Intelligence Engine (AIE).

QEMU implements the following Versal SoCs variants:

  • Versal (the amd-versal-virt machine, the alias xlnx-versal-virt is kept for backward compatibility)

  • Versal Gen 2 (the amd-versal2-virt machine)

More details here: https://www.amd.com/en/products/adaptive-socs-and-fpgas/versal.html

The family of Versal SoCs share a single architecture but come in different parts with different speed grades, amounts of PL and other differences.

The AMD Versal Virt board in QEMU is a model of a virtual board (does not exist in reality) with a virtual Versal SoC without I/O limitations. Currently, we support the following cores and devices:

Versal

Implemented CPU cores:

  • 2 ACPUs (ARM Cortex-A72) with their GICv3 and ITS

  • 2 RCPUs (ARM Cortex-R5F) with their GICv2

Implemented devices:

  • 2 UARTs (ARM PL011)

  • An RTC (Versal built-in)

  • 2 GEMs (Cadence MACB Ethernet MACs)

  • 8 ADMA (Xilinx zDMA) channels

  • 2 SD Controllers

  • OCM (256KB of On Chip Memory)

  • XRAM (4MB of on chip Accelerator RAM)

  • DDR memory

  • BBRAM (36 bytes of Battery-backed RAM)

  • eFUSE (3072 bytes of one-time field-programmable bit array)

  • 2 CANFDs

  • USB controller

  • OSPI controller

  • TRNG controller

Versal Gen 2

Implemented CPU cores:

  • 8 ACPUs (ARM Cortex-A78AE) with their GICv3 and ITS

  • 10 RCPUs (ARM Cortex-R52) with their GICv3 (one per cluster)

Implemented devices:

  • 2 UARTs (ARM PL011)

  • An RTC (Versal built-in)

  • 3 GEMs (Cadence MACB Ethernet MACs)

  • 8 ADMA (Xilinx zDMA) channels

  • 2 SD Controllers

  • OCM (256KB of On Chip Memory)

  • DDR memory

  • BBRAM (36 bytes of Battery-backed RAM)

  • 2 CANFDs

  • 2 USB controllers

  • OSPI controller

  • TRNG controller

QEMU does not yet model any other devices, including the PL and the AI Engine.

Other differences between the hardware and the QEMU model:

  • QEMU allows the amount of DDR memory provided to be specified with the -m argument. If a DTB is provided on the command line then QEMU will edit it to include suitable entries describing the Versal DDR memory ranges.

  • QEMU provides 8 virtio-mmio virtio transports. They use reserved memory regions and IRQ pins to avoid conflicts with real SoC peripherals.

Running

If the user provides an Operating System to be loaded, we expect users to use the -kernel command line option.

Users can load firmware or boot-loaders with the -device loader options.

When loading an OS, QEMU generates a DTB and selects an appropriate address where it gets loaded. This DTB will be passed to the kernel in register x0.

If there’s no -kernel option, we generate a DTB and place it at 0x1000 for boot-loaders or firmware to pick it up. To dump and observe the generated DTB, one can use the dumpdtb machine option:

$ qemu-system-aarch64 -M amd-versal-virt,dumpdtb=example.dtb -m 2G

If users want to provide their own DTB, they can use the -dtb option. These DTBs will have their memory nodes modified to match QEMU’s selected ram_size option before they get passed to the kernel or FW.

When loading an OS, we turn on QEMU’s PSCI implementation with SMC as the PSCI conduit. When there’s no -kernel option, we assume the user provides EL3 firmware to handle PSCI.

A few examples:

Direct Linux boot of a generic ARM64 upstream Linux kernel:

$ qemu-system-aarch64 -M amd-versal-virt -m 2G \
    -serial mon:stdio -display none \
    -kernel arch/arm64/boot/Image \
    -nic user -nic user \
    -device virtio-rng-device,bus=virtio-mmio-bus.0 \
    -drive if=none,index=0,file=hd0.qcow2,id=hd0,snapshot \
    -drive file=qemu_sd.qcow2,if=sd,index=0,snapshot \
    -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 -append root=/dev/vda

Direct Linux boot of PetaLinux 2019.2:

$ qemu-system-aarch64  -M amd-versal-virt -m 2G \
    -serial mon:stdio -display none \
    -kernel petalinux-v2019.2/Image \
    -append "rdinit=/sbin/init console=ttyAMA0,115200n8 earlycon=pl011,mmio,0xFF000000,115200n8" \
    -net nic,model=cadence_gem,netdev=net0 -netdev user,id=net0 \
    -device virtio-rng-device,bus=virtio-mmio-bus.0,rng=rng0 \
    -object rng-random,filename=/dev/urandom,id=rng0

Boot PetaLinux 2019.2 via ARM Trusted Firmware (2018.3 because the 2019.2 version of ATF tries to configure the CCI which we don’t model) and U-boot:

$ qemu-system-aarch64 -M amd-versal-virt -m 2G \
    -serial stdio -display none \
    -device loader,file=petalinux-v2018.3/bl31.elf,cpu-num=0 \
    -device loader,file=petalinux-v2019.2/u-boot.elf \
    -device loader,addr=0x20000000,file=petalinux-v2019.2/Image \
    -nic user -nic user \
    -device virtio-rng-device,bus=virtio-mmio-bus.0,rng=rng0 \
    -object rng-random,filename=/dev/urandom,id=rng0

Run the following at the U-Boot prompt:

Versal>
fdt addr $fdtcontroladdr
fdt move $fdtcontroladdr 0x40000000
fdt set /timer clock-frequency <0x3dfd240>
setenv bootargs "rdinit=/sbin/init maxcpus=1 console=ttyAMA0,115200n8 earlycon=pl011,mmio,0xFF000000,115200n8"
booti 20000000 - 40000000
fdt addr $fdtcontroladdr

Boot Linux as DOM0 on Xen via U-Boot:

$ qemu-system-aarch64 -M amd-versal-virt -m 4G \
    -serial stdio -display none \
    -device loader,file=petalinux-v2019.2/u-boot.elf,cpu-num=0 \
    -device loader,addr=0x30000000,file=linux/2018-04-24/xen \
    -device loader,addr=0x40000000,file=petalinux-v2019.2/Image \
    -nic user -nic user \
    -device virtio-rng-device,bus=virtio-mmio-bus.0,rng=rng0 \
    -object rng-random,filename=/dev/urandom,id=rng0

Run the following at the U-Boot prompt:

Versal>
fdt addr $fdtcontroladdr
fdt move $fdtcontroladdr 0x20000000
fdt set /timer clock-frequency <0x3dfd240>
fdt set /chosen xen,xen-bootargs "console=dtuart dtuart=/uart@ff000000 dom0_mem=640M bootscrub=0 maxcpus=1 timer_slop=0"
fdt set /chosen xen,dom0-bootargs "rdinit=/sbin/init clk_ignore_unused console=hvc0 maxcpus=1"
fdt mknode /chosen dom0
fdt set /chosen/dom0 compatible "xen,multiboot-module"
fdt set /chosen/dom0 reg <0x00000000 0x40000000 0x0 0x03100000>
booti 30000000 - 20000000

Boot Linux as Dom0 on Xen via ARM Trusted Firmware and U-Boot:

$ qemu-system-aarch64 -M amd-versal-virt -m 4G \
    -serial stdio -display none \
    -device loader,file=petalinux-v2018.3/bl31.elf,cpu-num=0 \
    -device loader,file=petalinux-v2019.2/u-boot.elf \
    -device loader,addr=0x30000000,file=linux/2018-04-24/xen \
    -device loader,addr=0x40000000,file=petalinux-v2019.2/Image \
    -nic user -nic user \
    -device virtio-rng-device,bus=virtio-mmio-bus.0,rng=rng0 \
    -object rng-random,filename=/dev/urandom,id=rng0

Run the following at the U-Boot prompt:

Versal>
fdt addr $fdtcontroladdr
fdt move $fdtcontroladdr 0x20000000
fdt set /timer clock-frequency <0x3dfd240>
fdt set /chosen xen,xen-bootargs "console=dtuart dtuart=/uart@ff000000 dom0_mem=640M bootscrub=0 maxcpus=1 timer_slop=0"
fdt set /chosen xen,dom0-bootargs "rdinit=/sbin/init clk_ignore_unused console=hvc0 maxcpus=1"
fdt mknode /chosen dom0
fdt set /chosen/dom0 compatible "xen,multiboot-module"
fdt set /chosen/dom0 reg <0x00000000 0x40000000 0x0 0x03100000>
booti 30000000 - 20000000

It’s possible to change the OSPI flash model emulated by using the machine model option ospi-flash.

BBRAM File Backend

BBRAM can have an optional file backend, which must be a seekable binary file with a size of 36 bytes or larger. A file with all binary 0s is a ‘blank’.

To add a file-backend for the BBRAM:

-drive if=pflash,index=0,file=versal-bbram.bin,format=raw

To use a different index value, N, from default of 0, add:

-global driver=xlnx.bbram-ctrl,property=drive-index,value=N

eFUSE File Backend

Note

The eFUSE device is not implemented in the Versal Gen 2 QEMU model yet.

eFUSE can have an optional file backend, which must be a seekable binary file with a size of 3072 bytes or larger. A file with all binary 0s is a ‘blank’.

To add a file-backend for the eFUSE:

-drive if=pflash,index=1,file=versal-efuse.bin,format=raw

To use a different index value, N, from default of 1, add:

-global xlnx-efuse.drive-index=N

Warning

In actual physical Versal, BBRAM and eFUSE contain sensitive data. The QEMU device models do not encrypt nor obfuscate any data when holding them in models’ memory or when writing them to their file backends.

Thus, a file backend should be used with caution, and ‘format=luks’ is highly recommended (albeit with usage complexity).

Better yet, do not use actual product data when running guest image on this AMD Versal Virt board.

Using CANFDs for Versal Virt

Versal CANFD controller is developed based on SocketCAN and QEMU CAN bus implementation. Bus connection and socketCAN connection for each CAN module can be set through command lines.

To connect both CANFD0 and CANFD1 on the same bus:

-object can-bus,id=canbus -machine canbus0=canbus -machine canbus1=canbus

To connect CANFD0 and CANFD1 to separate buses:

-object can-bus,id=canbus0 -object can-bus,id=canbus1 \
-machine canbus0=canbus0 -machine canbus1=canbus1

The SocketCAN interface can connect to a Physical or a Virtual CAN interfaces on the host machine. Please check this document to learn about CAN interface on Linux: docs/system/devices/can.rst

To connect CANFD0 and CANFD1 to host machine’s CAN interface can0:

-object can-bus,id=canbus -machine canbus0=canbus -machine canbus1=canbus
-object can-host-socketcan,id=canhost0,if=can0,canbus=canbus

Note

Versal Gen 2 has 4 CAN controllers. canbus0 to canbus3 can be specified on the command line.