[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <20250423225405.139613-4-joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2025 18:53:59 -0400
From: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>
To: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
Danilo Krummrich <dakr@...nel.org>,
Maarten Lankhorst <maarten.lankhorst@...ux.intel.com>,
Maxime Ripard <mripard@...nel.org>,
Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@...e.de>,
David Airlie <airlied@...il.com>,
Simona Vetter <simona@...ll.ch>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>
Cc: nouveau@...ts.freedesktop.org,
dri-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org,
Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@...dia.com>,
John Hubbard <jhubbard@...dia.com>,
Shirish Baskaran <sbaskaran@...dia.com>,
Alistair Popple <apopple@...dia.com>,
Timur Tabi <ttabi@...dia.com>,
Ben Skeggs <bskeggs@...dia.com>,
Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>,
linux-doc@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 3/6] nova-core: docs: Document vbios layout
Add detailed explanation and block diagrams of the layout of the vBIOS
on Nvidia GPUs. This is important to understand how nova-core boots an
Nvidia GPU.
Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@...dia.com>
---
Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst | 154 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 154 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst b/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..17411f21b410
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,154 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: (GPL-2.0+ OR MIT)
+==========
+VBIOS
+==========
+
+This document describes the layout of the VBIOS image which is a series of concatenated
+images in the ROM of the GPU. The VBIOS is mirrored onto the BAR 0 space and is read
+by both Boot ROM firmware (also known as IFR or init-from-rom firmware) on the GPU to
+boot strap various microcontrollers (PMU, SEC, GSP) with critical initialization before
+the driver loads, as well as by the nova-core driver in the kernel to boot the GSP.
+
+The format of the images in the ROM follow the "BIOS Specification" part of the
+PCI specification, with Nvidia-specific extensions.
+
+As an example, the following are the different image types that can be found in the
+VBIOS of an Ampere GA102 GPU which is supported by the nova-core driver.
+
+- PciAt Image (Type 0x00) - This is the standard PCI BIOS image who's naming likely
+ comes from the "IBM PC/AT" architecture.
+
+- EFI Image (Type 0x03) - This is the EFI BIOS image. It contains the UEFI GOP
+ driver that is used to display UEFI graphics output.
+
+- First FwSec Image (Type 0xE0) - The first FwSec image (Secure Firmware)
+
+- Second FwSec Image (Type 0xE0) - The second FwSec image (Secure Firmware) contains
+ various microcodes that do a range of different functions - all in high secure mode
+ where they are allowed to perform highly privileged register accesses that the CPU
+ cannot do. The 2 most important parts (also known as Application Interfaces) of this
+ are:
+ 1. The devinit engine - this is loaded ontop the PMU before the driver loads
+ and interprets devinit commands which perform critical hardware initialization.
+ This will be described in a separate document.
+ 2. The DMEM mapper - this is loaded onto the GSP and one of the commands it
+ performs is carving out the WPR2 area (Write protected region) and placing
+ important data called 'FRTS' into it which contains things like voltage/frequency
+ curves etc.
+
+It is not clear why FwSec has 2 different images, but they both are of type 0xE0
+and can be identified as such.
+
+VBIOS ROM Layout
+----------------
+
+The VBIOS layout is roughly a series of concatenated images as follows:
+(For more explanations of acronyms, see the detailed descriptions in vbios.rs).
+
+┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
+│ VBIOS (Starting at ROM_OFFSET: 0x300000) │
+├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
+│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │
+│ │ PciAt Image (Type 0x00) │ │
+│ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ ROM Header │ │ │
+│ │ │ (Signature 0xAA55)│ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │
+│ │ │ rom header's pci_data_struct_offset │ │
+│ │ │ points to the PCIR structure │ │
+│ │ V │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ PCIR Structure │ │ │
+│ │ │ (Signature "PCIR")│ │ │
+│ │ │ last_image: 0x80 │ │ │
+│ │ │ image_len: size │ │ │
+│ │ │ in 512-byte units │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │
+│ │ │ │ │
+│ │ │ NPDE immediately follows PCIR │ │
+│ │ V │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ NPDE Structure │ │ │
+│ │ │ (Signature "NPDE")│ │ │
+│ │ │ last_image: 0x00 │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │
+│ │ │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ BIT Header │ (Signature scanning │ │
+│ │ │ (Signature "BIT") │ provides the location │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ of the BIT table) │ │
+│ │ │ header is │ │
+│ │ | followed by a table of tokens │ │
+│ │ V one of which is for falcon data. │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ BIT Tokens │ │ │
+| | | ______________ | | |
+│ │ │ │ Falcon Data │ │ │ │
+│ │ │ │ Token (0x70)│---+------------>------------┼──+ │
+│ │ │ └─────────────┘ │ falcon_data_ptr() │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ V │
+│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │
+│ (no gap between images) │ │
+│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ EFI Image (Type 0x03) │ │ │
+│ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │
+| | Contains the UEFI GOP driver (Graphics Output)| | |
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │ │
+│ │ │ ROM Header │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ PCIR Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ NPDE Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ │ │ Image data │ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │
+│ (no gap between images) │ │
+│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ First FwSec Image (Type 0xE0) │ │ │
+│ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │ │
+│ │ │ ROM Header │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ PCIR Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ NPDE Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ │ │ Image data │ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │
+│ (no gap between images) │ │
+│ ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ Second FwSec Image (Type 0xE0) │ │ │
+│ ├───────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │ │
+│ │ │ ROM Header │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ PCIR Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ +───────────────────+ │ │ │
+│ │ │ NPDE Structure │ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ │ │ │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │ │
+│ │ │ PMU Lookup Table │ <- falcon_data_offset │<─┘ │
+│ │ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ pmu_lookup_table │ │
+│ │ │ │ Entry 0x85 │ │ │ │
+│ │ │ │ FWSEC_PROD │ │ │ │
+│ │ │ └─────────────┘ │ │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │
+│ │ │ │ │
+│ │ │ points to │ │
+│ │ V │ │
+│ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ FalconUCodeDescV3 │ <- falcon_ucode_offset │ │
+│ │ │ (FWSEC Firmware) │ fwsec_header() │ │
+│ │ └───────────────────┘ │ │
+│ │ │ immediately followed by... │ │
+│ │ V │ │
+│ │ ┌────────────────────────────┐ │ │
+│ │ │ Signatures + FWSEC Ucode │ │ │
+│ │ │ fwsec_sigs(), fwsec_ucode()│ │ │
+│ │ └────────────────────────────┘ │ │
+│ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘______________________│
+
--
2.43.0
Powered by blists - more mailing lists