Beagleboard: The XLOADER

XLoader is typically a very tiny bootloader code (which has a restriction on its size to be less than ~61KB)
that prepares the board/HW for the 3rd stage bootloader.
The limitation on Xloader size applies due to the fact that this code gets loaded onto an internal (within the OMAP 3530 die, closer to L2 Cache) onchip SRAM whose size is limited to 64KB. Though 64KB in size, this SRAM is further divided to accomodate stacks for different modes, Interrupt Vector Tables, Tracing data etc., leaving behind only  61KB available for the actual code and static data.

This stage of the bootloader does additional configuration (Mostly external SDRAM setup, basic IVT setup, Stacks setup etc.) in preparation for the 3rd stage bootloader  (Typically the "UBOOT" in a Linux setup).


We will start our development from this 2nd stage bootloader phase and proceed forward bringing more and more features to life as we progress......