kumquat-buildroot/board/broadcom/northstar/readme.txt

Broadcom Northstar

Intro
=====

This readme covers Northstar family of Broadcom SoCs. It includes:
  - BCM4708 (2 x 800 MHz)
  - BCM47081 (1 x 800 MHz)
  - BCM4709 (2 x 1 GHz)
  - BCM47094 (2 x 1 GHz) (AKA BCM4709C0)

Northstar platform is used in some home routers by multiple vendors. There are
over 100 market devices based on it and they can all be supported with 1 kernel.

There is no point in having separated board for each model. This board code is
meant for all supported Northstar devices.

All Northstar devices come with CFE bootloader by default. It's basically closed
source as sources are available for some old releases only. There is no U-Boot (or
any other) drop-in replacement or second stage loader with Northstar support.

CFE supports flashing firmware images over TFTP and HTTP (depending on vendor /
device setup).

How to build it
===============

  $ make broadcom_ns_defconfig

  $ make

How to flash over HTTP
======================

Power on device and press (and hold) CTRL+C in serial console terminal. When CFE
gets into prompt mode it'll automatically start built-in HTTP server. Navigate
to http://192.168.1.1/ (unless IP was changed - verify with "ifconfig") and
upload new firmware using a web browser.
configs/broadcom_northstar: new defconfig Broadcom Northstar family of SoCs is most commonly used for home routers. It's an ARM platform with Cortex-A9 CPU(s). All known Northstar devices come with CFE bootloader which almost always expects a TRX firmware format (with exception for D-Link). Some vendors (like Luxul and Netgear) wrap TRX in their own containers. This board code provides: 1. Minimal kernel with support for on-SoC blocks. It enables Linux drivers for SoC, watchdog, Ethernet, switch, USB, PCIe, LEDs). 2. Post image script building firmware images. In uses Buildroot packages tools (lzma_alone, otrx, lxlfw) to build bootloader-compatible images that can be flashed. Signed-off-by: Rafał Miłecki <rafal@milecki.pl> Reviewed-by: Giulio Benetti <giulio.benetti@benettiengineering.com> Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@bootlin.com> 2022-03-10 13:12:29 +01:00			`Broadcom Northstar`

			`Intro`
			`=====`

			`This readme covers Northstar family of Broadcom SoCs. It includes:`
			`- BCM4708 (2 x 800 MHz)`
			`- BCM47081 (1 x 800 MHz)`
			`- BCM4709 (2 x 1 GHz)`
			`- BCM47094 (2 x 1 GHz) (AKA BCM4709C0)`

			`Northstar platform is used in some home routers by multiple vendors. There are`
			`over 100 market devices based on it and they can all be supported with 1 kernel.`

			`There is no point in having separated board for each model. This board code is`
			`meant for all supported Northstar devices.`

			`All Northstar devices come with CFE bootloader by default. It's basically closed`
			`source as sources are available for some old releases only. There is no U-Boot (or`
			`any other) drop-in replacement or second stage loader with Northstar support.`

			`CFE supports flashing firmware images over TFTP and HTTP (depending on vendor /`
			`device setup).`

			`How to build it`
			`===============`

			`$ make broadcom_ns_defconfig`

			`$ make`

			`How to flash over HTTP`
			`======================`

			`Power on device and press (and hold) CTRL+C in serial console terminal. When CFE`
			`gets into prompt mode it'll automatically start built-in HTTP server. Navigate`
			`to http://192.168.1.1/ (unless IP was changed - verify with "ifconfig") and`
			`upload new firmware using a web browser.`