"Partition alignment error" after upgrading the SDK from v2.2.0 to v2.5.0

[Jithin A]

Hi,

We are working with nRF5340, the project was working fine until we updated the SDK toolchain from v2.2.0 to v2.5.0

No changes are made in the code, and yet we see below error.

!!!Partition alignment error!!!
The non-secure start address in pm_static.yml or generated partition.yml is: 0x6c200
which is not aligned with the SPU region size.
Refer to the documentation section 'TF-M partition alignment requirements'
for more information.

   '
   16 | #pragma message "\n\n!!!Partition alignment error!!!"\
      |         ^~~~~~~
D:/work/nrf/sdk/v2.5.0/v2.5.0/nrf/modules/tfm/tfm/boards/common/assert.c:22:2: error: #error "TF-M non-secure start address is not aligned on SPU region size"
   22 | #error "TF-M non-secure start address is not aligned on SPU region size"
      |  ^~~~~

The same setup works well in SDKv2.2.0.

From the above error we see it is not aligned to SPU region size. I did not get any reference to region size to modify our partition.

Please help us with any reference or fix to the above error.

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Hi,

Do you use static partitioning?

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

[Jithin A]

Hi Sigurd,

No, we are not using any static partitioning.

One thing to mention, for some reason we are resizing the TF-M partition using prj.conf

CONFIG_PM_PARTITION_SIZE_TFM=0x44000

After some R&D in our prj file we found that due to this macro we are getting error.

• If we disable this macro, we get memory overflow error, and this is a known issue.
• To narrow our observation, we also removed some high memory usage files and the code build successfully.
• So, to point to the issue, if we try to re-size any partition, we are getting "Partition alignment error".

Our TF-M application should get a min of 0x44000 size to work. (MCUBoot enabled)

Any suggestions to avoid the error.

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Jithin A said:

If we disable this macro, we get memory overflow error, and this is a known issue.

Can you go to nRF Connact SDK: Memory Report -> Partitions in VS Code? Then you can see how the partitioning looks.

Now, post images of this page both with and without CONFIG_PM_PARTITION_SIZE_TFM.

Then we can see the difference between these, and what went wrong.

[Jithin A]

Hi Sigurd,

Sorry for the late response, we had a high priority task to complete.

Please find the partitions info you have asked for in the attachment.

I was not able to capture the partition table in a single window, so I am sharing the table as is.

Please let me know if any further information needed.

memory-report.xlsx

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Try to use 43e00 instead of 44000.

[Jithin A]

Hi Sigurd, 

Sigurd Hellesvik said:

Try to use 43e00 instead of 44000.

--> This worked for us. Thank you for the quick response.

Can you explain why reducing 512bytes (0x200)?

Just out of curiosity, what if we need to expand the memory allocation and on what basis we need to align the TF-M partition?

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

The SPU can secure block sizes of 0x4000, so the secured blocks should align with 0x4000.

However,recently we changed alignment some where a 0x200 mcuboot pad was added in front of the TF-M part I think. Therefore, we need to make TF-M + the pad align with 0x4000. This is why we decrease it with 0x200.

For more information on TF-M alignement, see TF-M partition alignment requirements.