rimage: Add support to ignore detached sections

[dbaluta]

There are some non-critical data and code sections that are kept in DRAM to be accessed and executed from there without being copyind to SRAM.

Such sections are marked as detached and linked into a separate "cold.mod" module.

SOF marks sections between: SOF_MODULE_DRAM_LINK_START (0x00000000) to SOF_MODULE_DRAM_LINK_END (0x080000000) but this overalps with ITCM memory on M7 core of i.MX8MP.

Add an option to ignore marking section as detached.

Ideally in the future the dram start/end should be configured per platform.

By default the behavior is unmodified, to enable this option one would need to pass -d to rimage.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds a new -d CLI option to rimage to optionally skip marking ELF sections as “detached” (e.g., to avoid incorrect DRAM-range-based detachment on platforms where the DRAM link range overlaps other memories).

Changes:

• Add -d flag and plumb it through struct image into module section parsing.
• Extend module_parse_sections() API to accept an ignore_detached boolean.
• Gate out_section->detached computation based on the new flag.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
tools/rimage/src/rimage.c	Adds -d option handling and passes the new flag into section parsing.
tools/rimage/src/module.c	Updates section detachment logic to honor ignore_detached.
tools/rimage/src/include/rimage/rimage.h	Adds ignore_detached field to the global image context.
tools/rimage/src/include/rimage/module.h	Updates module_parse_sections() declaration to include the new parameter.

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[softwarecki]

What is the content of this non-critical data/code sections? Can we safely skip loading them?

[dbaluta]

What is the content of this non-critical data/code sections? Can we safely skip loading them?

I think they are data and code that do not need to benefit from the reduced access time of the SRAM (or they are too big to fit in the SRAM) and for platforms using them we cannot skip them. Like for Intel.

Thus -d option which by default keeps the original behavior (e.g do not ignore the detached sections).

[lyakh]

What is the content of this non-critical data/code sections? Can we safely skip loading them?

@softwarecki I think "non performance critical" was meant, i.e. cold sections, which of course cannot be skipped

[softwarecki]

So if they are needed, what is the purpose of separating them into a separate cold.mod file? Wouldn't it be better to keep them together with the firmware or a module that needs them?

[dbaluta]

So if they are needed, what is the purpose of separating them into a separate cold.mod file? Wouldn't it be better to keep them together with the firmware or a module that needs them?

I honestly don't know. This is Intel stuff.

@lyakh @lgirdwood can you help answer @softwarecki question.