From: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Danilo Krummrich <dakr@kernel.org>,
Maarten Lankhorst <maarten.lankhorst@linux.intel.com>,
Maxime Ripard <mripard@kernel.org>,
Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@suse.de>,
David Airlie <airlied@gmail.com>, Simona Vetter <simona@ffwll.ch>,
Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: nouveau@lists.freedesktop.org, dri-devel@lists.freedesktop.org,
Alexandre Courbot <acourbot@nvidia.com>,
John Hubbard <jhubbard@nvidia.com>,
Shirish Baskaran <sbaskaran@nvidia.com>,
Alistair Popple <apopple@nvidia.com>,
Timur Tabi <ttabi@nvidia.com>, Ben Skeggs <bskeggs@nvidia.com>,
rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org,
Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>,
linux-doc@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH v2 3/7] nova-core: docs: Document vbios layout
Date: Sat, 3 May 2025 00:07:55 -0400 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20250503040802.1411285-4-joelagnelf@nvidia.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20250503040802.1411285-1-joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
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.
[ Applied Timur Tabi's feedback on providing link to BIT documentation. ]
Signed-off-by: Joel Fernandes <joelagnelf@nvidia.com>
---
Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst | 177 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst | 1 +
2 files changed, 178 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..04ced35648cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nova/core/vbios.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,177 @@
+.. 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. The ROM images of type FwSec
+are the ones that contain Falcon ucode and what we are mainly looking for.
+
+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 different microcodes (also known as an applications) that do
+ a range of different functions. The FWSEC ucode is run in heavy-secure mode and
+ typically runs directly on the GSP (it could be running on a different designated
+ processor in future generations but as of Ampere, it is the GSP). This firmware
+ then loads other firmware ucodes onto the PMU and SEC2 microcontrollers for gfw
+ initialization after GPU reset and before the driver loads (see devinit.rst).
+ The DEVINIT ucode is itself another ucode that is stored in this ROM partition.
+
+The Falcon ucodes once located have "Application Interfaces" in the data memory (DMEM)
+of the ucode. For FWSEC, the application interface we use for FWSEC is the "DMEM mapper"
+interface which is configured to run the "FRTS" command. This command performs carving
+out of the WPR2 area (Write protected region) in the VRAM and placing important data
+called 'FRTS' into it which contains power-management data. The WPR2 region is only
+accessible to heavy-secure ucode.
+
+.. note::
+ It is not clear why FwSec has 2 different partitions in the ROM, but they both
+ are of type 0xE0 and can be identified as such. This could be subject to change
+ in future generations.
+
+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).
+
+.. note::
+ This diagram is created based on an GA-102 Ampere GPU as an example and could
+ vary for future or other GPUs.
+
+Here is a block diagram of the VBIOS layout::
+
+ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
+ │ 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()│ │ │
+ │ │ └────────────────────────────┘ │ │
+ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘______________________│
+
+Falcon data Lookup
+------------------
+A key part of the VBIOS extraction code (vbios.rs) is to find the location of the
+Falcon data in the VBIOS which contains the PMU lookup table. This lookup table is
+used to find the required Falcon ucode based on an application ID.
+
+The location of the PMU lookup table is found by scanning the BIT (`BIOS Information Table`_)
+tokens for a token with the id `BIT_TOKEN_ID_FALCON_DATA` (0x70) which indicates the
+offset of the same from the start of the VBIOS image. Unfortunately, the offset
+does not account for the EFI image that sits between the PciAt image and the FwSec
+images, the vbios.rs code compensates for that with appropriate arithmetic.
+
+.. _`BIOS Information Table`: https://download.nvidia.com/open-gpu-doc/BIOS-Information-Table/1/BIOS-Information-Table.html
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
index 2701b3f4af35..91cc802ed94f 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/nova/index.rst
@@ -27,4 +27,5 @@ vGPU manager VFIO driver and the nova-drm driver.
:titlesonly:
core/guidelines
+ core/vbios
core/todo
--
2.43.0
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-05-03 4:08 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 21+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-05-03 4:07 [PATCH v2 0/7] Documentation for nova-core Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 1/7] nova-core: doc: Add code comments related to devinit Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 2/7] nova-core: doc: Clarify sysmembar operations Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` Joel Fernandes [this message]
2025-05-05 3:00 ` [PATCH v2 3/7] nova-core: docs: Document vbios layout Bagas Sanjaya
2025-05-05 3:12 ` Bagas Sanjaya
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 4/7] nova-core: docs: Document fwsec operation and layout Joel Fernandes
2025-05-05 3:52 ` Bagas Sanjaya
2025-05-06 16:26 ` Zhi Wang
2025-05-09 20:56 ` Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 5/7] docs: nova-core: Document devinit process Joel Fernandes
2025-05-05 4:04 ` Bagas Sanjaya
2025-05-05 22:15 ` Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 6/7] docs: nova-core: Document basics of the Falcon Joel Fernandes
2025-05-05 4:14 ` Bagas Sanjaya
2025-05-05 21:37 ` Joel Fernandes
2025-05-03 4:07 ` [PATCH v2 7/7] gpu: nova-core: Clarify falcon code Joel Fernandes
2025-05-06 16:21 ` Zhi Wang
2025-05-09 20:59 ` Joel Fernandes
2025-06-30 10:37 ` [PATCH v2 0/7] Documentation for nova-core Danilo Krummrich
2025-06-30 11:33 ` Alexandre Courbot
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