Apex Boot Loader
Apex Boot Loader
Last modified by Marc Singer on 2011/09/16 13:00
APEX is a boot loader for embedded systems. It was written to support the Sharp NXP LH7 series of SystemOnChip processors and has since been ported to several other ARM targets.
Features
- Easy to build. It depends only on shell utilities and GCC.
- Easy to configure. There is a single configuration file and it uses the linux-2.6 Kconfig infrastructure.
- Excellent dependency management. Uses Linux kernel Kbuild to optimally manage dependencies.
- Modular. Commands and drivers may be included or excluded by configuration.
- CFI NOR flash driver supports Intel and Spansion/AMD command sets.
- Support for RARP IP configuration and TFTP transfers to the target.
- Filesystem drivers for FAT, EXT2, and JFFS2.
- Partition driver for FIS as used by Redboot.
- SATA driver for Marvell Orion5x.
- Small footprint. A limited feature version can be as small as 16KiB. May be compiled to THUMB.
- Support for booting APEX from non-memory-mapped storage, e.g. NAND flash, OneNAND, I2C EEPROM, SD/MMC.
- Support for loading images in either APEX or UBOOT format.
Supported Targets
| CPU | Architecture | Implementations | Platform Drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| NXP LH79520 | ARMv4t ARM720T | Logic LPD79520 | CLCD, CompactFlash |
| NXP LH79524 | ARMv4t ARM720T | Logic LPD79524 | CLCD, CompactFlash |
| NXP LH79525 | ARMv4t ARM720T | 16 bit external bus | CLCD, CompactFlash |
| NXP LH7A400 | ARMv4t ARM922T | Logic LPD7A400 | CLCD, SD/MMC, CompactFlash |
| NXP LH7A404 | ARMv4t ARM922T | Logic LPD7A404 | CLCD, SD/MMC, CompactFlash, DM9000 |
| Intel IXP42x | ARMv5te XScale | Linksys NSLU2 | SDRAM Expansion |
| Samsumg S3C2410 | ARMv4t ARM920T | M7200 | |
| Freescale iMX31 | ARMv6 | MX31ADS, PhyTec PCM037, Exbiblio oPen | OneNAND w/bootstrap; DM9000, SMC91x |
| Marvell Orion5x | ARMv5te Feroceon (ARM9) | HP MediaVault 2120 | SATA |
| Freescale iMX51 | ARMv7 | Genesi Efikamx | SPI Flash, SD/MMC, ATA |
Downloading APEX
The source for APEX is hosted on GitHub and Gitorious.
The most recently released source code and prebuilt binaries are available for download.
