Working with eMMC

Copyright 2020 © Embedded Artists AB

Working with embedded

MultiMediaCard (eMMC)
 Working with eMMC Page 2

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Table of Contents
1 Document Revision History ................................. 4

2 Introduction ........................................................... 5
2.1 Additional information ................................................................... 5
2.2 Conventions in this document ...................................................... 5

3 Default configuration ............................................ 6

3.1 Memory areas ................................................................................. 6
3.2 Usage of the areas ......................................................................... 6

4 Get information about the eMMC device............. 8

4.1 List MMC devices ........................................................................... 8
4.2 mmc-utils ........................................................................................ 8
4.2.1 Check eMMC version .................................................................... 8
4.2.2 Max Enhanced Area Size .............................................................. 8
4.2.3 Boot partition size .......................................................................... 8
4.2.4 Boot configuration ......................................................................... 8
4.2.5 Life time estimation ....................................................................... 9
4.3 fdisk ................................................................................................. 9
4.4 df ...................................................................................................... 9
4.5 mount ............................................................................................ 10

5 Create / modify partitions ................................... 11

5.1 Partition user area ........................................................................ 11
5.2 Switch boot partition .................................................................... 11

6 Create enhanced mode (SLC) partition ............. 13

6.1 Why enhanced mode? ................................................................. 13
6.2 Create partition from Linux ......................................................... 13
6.2.1 Linux distributions ........................................................................ 13
6.2.2 Yocto configuration ...................................................................... 13
6.2.3 Instructions .................................................................................. 13
6.3 Create partition from u-boot ........................................................ 14
6.3.1 U-boot version ............................................................................. 14
6.3.2 Instructions .................................................................................. 14

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1 Document Revision History

Revision Date Description
A 2020-04-28 First release

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2 Introduction
Most embedded devices need some kind of storage area for firmware and data files. Many different
solutions exist, but this document will focus on embedded MultiMediaCard normally referred to as
eMMC.
An eMMC consists of two parts; the flash memory (of type NAND) and the memory controller. Having
the memory controller integrated simplifies the usage of the storage device. Without this controller the
software driver on the host would have to handle the low-level flash memory management, such as
wear levelling and error correction.
2.1 Additional information
Additional documentation you might need is.
• “TN-52-07: e.MMC Partitioning”, from Micron
• “TN-FC-40: Configuring the Embedded e.MMC Device”, from Micron
• “TN-FC-06: Booting from Embedded MMC”, from Micron
• Introduction of eMMC by Yejin Moon at Samsung Electronics

2.2 Conventions in this document

A number of conventions have been used throughout to help the reader better understand the content
of the document.
Constant width text – is used for file system paths and command, utility and tool names.

$ This field illustrates user input in a terminal running on the

development workstation, i.e., on the workstation where you edit,
configure and build Linux

# This field illustrates user input on the target hardware, i.e.,

input given to the terminal attached to the COM Board

This field i s used to illustrate e xample code or excerpt from a

document.

This field is used for important notes and highlights

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3 Default configuration
3.1 Memory areas
When the eMMC component is delivered from the manufacturer it is normally divided into four areas as
shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 - Default memory organization

Area Description
Boot Typically used to store firmware and data needed during booting of the device. Two boot
areas are normally available and these are of type SLC NAND (enhanced mode)
RPMB Replay-protected memory-block area. This area is typically used to store secure data such
as encryption keys. This area is of type SLC NAND (enhanced mode).
User This area is used to store user data such as a file system. This is the area that is normally
divided into several partitions. By default, it is of type MLC NAND, but can be changed to
SLC NAND (enhanced mode), see chapter 6

3.2 Usage of the areas

Figure 2 show the default usage of the eMMC areas on Embedded Artists COM boards.

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Figure 2 - Default usage of the eMMC areas

Area Description
Boot area 1 The bootloader images (such as SPL and u-boot) are stored in this area. The boot
area is not formatted and contains no file system. The images are instead stored at
fixed offsets. When SPL and u-boot are used SPL will be stored at an offset of 1024
bytes (1 Kbyte) and u-boot will be stored at an offset of 69 Kbytes.
The area also contains the u-boot environment which is stored at an offset of 2 Mbytes
minus 8 Kbytes (2MB – 8KB).
User area The user area is divided into two partitions. The first partition will be FAT32 formatted
Partition 1 and contain the Linux kernel and device tree files.
User area The second partition contains the root file system and is by default ext3 formatted.
Partition 2

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4 Get information about the eMMC device

4.1 List MMC devices
In Linux you can list available MMC devices (and partitions) by checking the /dev/ directory

# ls -la /dev/mmcblk*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 0 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 32 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2boot0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 64 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2boot1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 1 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2p1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 2 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2p2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 179, 96 Dec 23 11:57 /dev/mmcblk2rpmb

In the above example there is one MMC device (mmcblk2) which has 5 partitions.
4.2 mmc-utils
The tool mmc-utils is by default installed in the root file system when using Embedded Artists Yocto
image. This tool can be used not only to retrieve information about the eMMC device, but also change
its configuration.
4.2.1 Check eMMC version

# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2 | head 2

=============================================
Extended CSD rev 1.8 (MMC 5.1)

4.2.2 Max Enhanced Area Size

You can check the maximum enhanced area size that can be used (see chapter 6 for more information
about enhanced area).

# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2 | grep -A2 MAX_ENH_SIZE_MULT

Max Enhanced Area Size [MAX_ENH_SIZE_MULT]: 0x0001d2
i.e. 3817472 KiB

4.2.3 Boot partition size

Check the boot partition size by running the command below. You can then calculate the actual size by
128 KB x BOOT_SIZE_MULTI. In the example below the size is 128 KB x 64 = 8192 KB = 8 MB.

# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2 | grep BOOT_SIZE_MULTI

Boot partition size [BOOT_SIZE_MULTI: 0x40]

4.2.4 Boot configuration

Check the current boot configuration by running the command below. In this example BOOT_ACK (bit
6) is set and boot partition 1 is enabled (bit 3). See the table below for the field / bit descriptions.

# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2 | grep PARTITION_CONFIG

Boot configuration bytes [PARTITION_CONFIG: 0x48]

Bit Field Description

6 BOOT_ACK 0x0 = No boot acknowledge

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0x1 = Boot acknowledge during boot

[5:3] BOOT_PARTITION_ENABLE 0x0 = Not boot enabled
0x1 = Boot partition 1 enabled for boot
0x2 = Boot partition 2 enabled for boot
0x7 = User area enabled for boot
[2:0] BOOT_PARTITION_ACCESS 0x0 = No access to boot partition
0x1 = Read/Write boot partition 1
0x2 = Read/Write boot partition 2

4.2.5 Life time estimation

It is possible to get an estimation on the health status of the device by checking the parameters
EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A and EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B.
The estimation is given in steps of 10% so a value of 0x01 means that 0% to 10% life time used.
This functionality was introduced in eMMC 5.0.

# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2 | grep EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST

eMMC Life Time Estimation A [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_A]: 0x01
eMMC Life Time Estimation B [EXT_CSD_DEVICE_LIFE_TIME_EST_TYP_B]: 0x01

4.3 fdisk
The tool fdisk can be used to manage partitions in Linux. In the example below the available
partition are listed. In the example you can see that one disk (device) is available (mmcblk2) and a
total of 5 partitions (same as was listed in section 4.1 above). You can also see the file system type
being used (mmcblk2p1 is for example FAT32 formatted) and the size of the partition.

# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/mmcblk2: 7456 MB, 7818182656 bytes, 15269888 sectors
238592 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Device Boot StartCHS EndCHS StartLBA EndLBA Sectors Size

Id Type
/dev/mmcblk2p1 320,0,1 959,3,16 20480 1044479 1024000 500M
c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk2p2 768,0,1 1023,3,16 1228800 15269887 14041088 6856M
83 Linux
Disk /dev/mmcblk2rpmb: 4 MB, 4194304 bytes, 8192 sectors
128 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Disk /dev/mmcblk2rpmb doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mmcblk2boot1: 8 MB, 8388608 bytes, 16384 sectors
256 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Disk /dev/mmcblk2boot1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/mmcblk2boot0: 8 MB, 8388608 bytes, 16384 sectors
256 cylinders, 4 heads, 16 sectors/track
Units: cylinders of 64 * 512 = 32768 bytes

Disk /dev/mmcblk2boot0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

4.4 df
The tool df (disk free) can be used to see available storage space. In this example the root file system
has 5.8 GByte available.

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# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/root 6.5G 416.3M 5.8G 7% /
devtmpfs 173.9M 0 173.9M 0% /dev
tmpfs 494.2M 0 494.2M 0% /dev/shm
tmpfs 494.2M 16.4M 477.9M 3% /run
tmpfs 494.2M 0 494.2M 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 494.2M 756.0K 493.5M 0% /tmp
tmpfs 494.2M 24.0K 494.2M 0% /var/volatile
tmpfs 98.8M 88.0K 98.8M 0% /run/user/0

4.5 mount
With the tool mount you can see which partitions that have been mounted in the file system. In the
example below we see that partition 2 of the mmcblk2 device (eMMC) is mounted and has an ext3
filesystem.

# mount | grep mmc

/dev/mmcblk2p2 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

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5 Create / modify partitions

5.1 Partition user area
By default, the user area will be split into two partitions. This is done in the UUU scripts provided by
Embedded Artists.
The example below is from full_tar.uuu for the iMX8M Mini uCOM board.

FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; PARTSTR=$'10M,500M,0c\n600M,,83\n'; echo

"$PARTSTR" | sfdisk --force /dev/mmcblk${mmc}

The tool sfdisk is used to do the partitioning and it is given a string with two lines. Each line will
create a partition. In this example each line contains three arguments: <start>, <size>, and <id>.
10M,500M,0c means start at offset 10 MB with a size of 500 MB. The id is 0x0c which means
FAT32. This first partition will in the default setup contain Kernel and device tree files.
600M,..,83 means start at offset 600 MB and the size will be the remaining size of the user area.
The id is 0x83 which means Linux native partition. This second partition will in the default setup contain
the root file system.
Partition type IDs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type
5.2 Switch boot partition
The default setup from Embedded Artists is to have boot partition 1 enabled for boot. See section 4.2.4
for how to get information about current boot configuration.
Changing boot configuration can be done from Linux by using mmc-utils and more specifically mmc
bootpart enable <boot_partition> <send_ack> <device>. In the example below
boot partition 1 is enabled with boot acknowledgement for device /dev/mmcblk2.

# mmc bootpart 1 1 /dev/mmcblk2

Please note that you must also make sure to program the boot partition with bootable image(s). There
are different ways to do this, but you could for example use the UUU scripts provided by Embedded
Artists for the board you are using.
The excerpt below is from the bootloader.uuu script for the iMX7 Dual uCOM board. You can in this
example see that boot partition 1 is used (the device name ends with boot0). You can also see that
mmc utils is used to enable boot partition 1 for boot.
If you instead want to use boot partition 2 you can replace boot0 with boot1 and make sure mmc-
utils enable partition 2 (mmc bootpart enable 2 1 /dev/mmcblk${mmc}).

Note: All boot0 must be changed to boot1 and not just the highlighted parts.

# erase u-boot environment (8Kb located at offset (2Mb-8Kb) on /dev/mmcblk*boot0)

FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; echo 0 > /sys/block/mmcblk${mmc}boot0/force_ro
FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk${mmc}boot0 bs=1k
seek=2040 count=8

# bootloaders (SPL + u-boot)

FBK: ucp files/SPL-imx7dea-ucom t:/tmp
FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; dd if=/tmp/SPL-imx7dea-ucom
of=/dev/mmcblk${mmc}boot0 bs=512 seek=2

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FBK: ucp files/u-boot-imx7dea-ucom.img t:/tmp

FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; dd if=/tmp/u-boot-imx7dea-ucom.img
of=/dev/mmcblk${mmc}boot0 bs=512 seek=138
FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; echo 1 > /sys/block/mmcblk${mmc}boot0/force_ro
FBK: ucmd mmc=`cat /tmp/mmcdev`; mmc bootpart enable 1 1 /dev/mmcblk${mmc}

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6 Create enhanced mode (SLC) partition

6.1 Why enhanced mode?
The eMMC is built using NAND flash technology which exists in two different types; Single-Level Cell
(SLC) or Multi-Level Cell (MLC). MLC flash was developed to offer higher capacity (larger flash size)
for a given die size which basically means lower cost. SLC on the other hand provides better reliability
and performance making it in general more suitable for embedded and industrial products.
The disadvantage of configuring the user data area to enhanced mode is that you lose half of the
storage size.
6.2 Create partition from Linux
6.2.1 Linux distributions
The instructions in this document have been tested on Embedded Artists 4.14.98 distribution.
6.2.2 Yocto configuration
The mmc-utils tool will be used to create an enhanced mode partition on the eMMC. These tools are
already added to Embedded Artists Yocto image (ea-image-base). If you want to add it to your own
custom build include the package below to your conf/local.conf file.

IMAGE_INSTAL L_append = " \

mmc-util s \
"

6.2.3 Instructions

NOTE: The instructions are irreversible. Once you have converted a partition to enhanced
mode you can never undo this operation. Double check your parameters before executing a
command!

These instructions will convert the entire user area to enhanced mode. If you want to convert only a
portion of the area you need to modify the start and the length arguments.
1. Find the eMMC device
By default, the eMMC device is mounted as root device. If you run the mount command you can in
this example see that MMC block device 2 (mmcblk2p2) and more specifically partition 2 (mmcblk2p2)
is mounted as root device.

# mount | grep mmc

/dev/mmcblk2p2 on / type ext3 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)

2. Finding the maximum size of the enhanced area.

Only a portion of the output from the mmc extcsd command is shown below. The important value is
the “Max Enhanced Area Size” value which in this example is 1908736 KiB (the total size of the eMMC
is in this example 4 GB).

NOTE: When converting the user area to enhanced mode you will only get half the size of
the original area.

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# mmc extcsd read /dev/mmcblk2

=============================================
Extended CSD rev 1.7 (MMC 5.0)
=============================================

Card Supported Command sets [S_CMD_SET: 0x01]

...
Max Enhanced Area Size [MAX_ENH_SIZE_MULT]: 0x0000e9
i.e. 1908736 KiB
Partitions attribute [PARTITIONS_ATTRIBUTE]: 0x00
Partitioning Setting [PARTITION_SETTING_COMPLETED]: 0x00
Device partition setting NOT complete

3. Convert to enhanced mode.

# mmc enh_area set -y 0 1908736 /dev/mmcblk2

4. Power-cycle and re-program

You need to power-cycle the board for the operation to take effect. Please note that you will also have
to re-program the board (partition, format, and program kernel and file system) using for example
manufacturing tool (UUU).
6.3 Create partition from u-boot
6.3.1 U-boot version
The instructions in this document have been tested using u-boot 2018.03.
6.3.2 Instructions

NOTE: The instructions are irreversible. Once you have converted a partition to enhanced
mode you can never undo this operation. Double check your parameters before executing a
command!

These instructions will convert the entire user area to enhanced mode. If you want to convert only a
portion of the area you need to modify the start and the cnt arguments.
1. Find the eMMC device
In this example you can see that eMMC is available on mmc device 1.

=> mmc list

FSL_SDHC: 0
FSL_SDHC: 1 (eMMC)

=> mmc dev 1

switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc1(part 0) is current device

2. Finding the maximum size of the enhanced area.

NOTE: When converting the user area to enhanced mode you will only get half the size of
the original area

The best way to find this value is from within Linux as described in section 6.2.3 above.

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Using mmc info doesn’t give an accurate value. As seen below the value for User Capacity is
rounded to one decimal (3.6GiB). An accurate value would have been 3.640625 GiB (3728 MiB or
3817472 KiB) which could then be use to get the maximum value of the enhanced area, that is, half
the value of the original area. Note that when using the mmc hwpartition command you need to
give all values in 512-byte blocks.

=> mmc info

Device: FSL_SDHC
Manufacturer ID: 13
OEM: 14e
Name: Q1J54
Tran Speed: 52000000
Rd Block Len: 512
MMC version 5.0
High Capacity: Yes
Capacity: 3.6 GiB
Bus Width: 8-bit
Erase Group Size: 512 KiB
HC WP Group Size: 8 MiB
User Capacity: 3.6 GiB WRREL
Boot Capacity: 2 MiB ENH
RPMB Capacity: 512 KiB ENH

3. Convert to enhanced mode.

=> mmc hwpartition user enh 0 3817472 complete

Partition configuration:
User Enhanced Start: 0 Bytes
User Enhanced Size: 1.8 GiB
No GP1 partition
No GP2 partition
No GP3 partition
No GP4 partition

4. Power-cycle and re-program

You need to power-cycle the board for the operation to take effect. Please note that you will also have
to re-program the board (partition, format, and program kernel and file system) using for example
manufacturing tool (UUU).

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