Minimizing a bare metal application’s size can speed up its boot time, free up memory for other uses, or reduce costs due to the smaller memory sizes required. This article lists some options to achieve this. Results are showcased using the default hello_world application on the VCK190 using the default GCC toolchain in Vitis 2021.2.

Table of Contents

Background

AMD/Xilinx devices with processors have customizable hardware. As a result, the set of software accessible peripherals and their configurations can be different for two hardware designs even if they use the same part number. Arm v8 processors also have the ability to run hypervisors; bare metal applications can run at EL3 or EL1.

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