Uboot FPGA firmware update from Linux

The FPGA firmware partition (mainly used from U-Boot) can be updated by means of U-Boot (see here) or directly from Linux as described herewith.

Under Linux:

• At first, download your FPGA firmware:

 # tftp -g -r my_firmware.bit 192.168.0.2

• Then, determine which partition in the flash is the firmware partition:

  # cat /proc/mtd 
  dev:    size   erasesize  name
  mtd0: 00100000 00020000 "u-boot"
  mtd1: 00080000 00020000 "env"
  mtd2: 00080000 00020000 "env2"
  mtd3: 00100000 00020000 "firmware"
  mtd4: 00080000 00020000 "dtb"
  mtd5: 00080000 00020000 "splash"
  mtd6: 00800000 00020000 "kernel"
  mtd7: 1f400000 00020000 "rootfs"

The example above is taken from an APF51 running Armadeus version 5.2 and we can see that mtd3 is the firmware partition. If yours is different, then replace mtd3 by what you found out to be the right one in the following commands.

• Once done, the firmware partition has to be erased:

 # flash_erase /dev/mtd3 0 0

• Then your FPGA .bit file can be written:

 # nandwrite -p /dev/mtd3 my_firmware.bit

That's all !