[lgirdwood]

Large C++ LLEXT modules (e.g. anything built with TensorFlow Lite Micro) can't be loaded with CONFIG_LLEXT_TYPE_ELF_RELOCATABLE. When they can be loaded, llext_load() is slow. This PR fixes both problems in llext_link_helper.py. Nothing changes in the firmware or the loader.

Problem

The partial (-r) link keeps every C++ COMDAT group (inline functions, template instances, vtables) as its own section. A wake-word module built with TFLM ends up with 5721 sections and 1273 relocation sections, and then:

• every executable section except .text is linked at address 0, i.e. as a DRAM section, so 1639 of its 1640 code sections, including the hot TFLM kernels, would run from IMR
• sections pulled in from libraries at the final link aren't in the object the helper inspects, so they get no address and also stay at 0 (vtables, rodata)
• the LLEXT section map alone needs 45KiB, so llext_load() fails with -ENOMEM on the default 8KiB LLEXT heap; with a bigger heap, llext_manager_load_module() rejects the module because .bss isn't adjacent to .data any more

Changes

0. Align the first section of each region. The Zephyr LLEXT loader merges sections into regions and pads each region's start down to the largest section alignment, but for relocatable (ET_REL) objects only the file offset gets padded, not the address. If a region's first section isn't at a file offset with that alignment, addresses in the region map to wrong file offsets. One effect: llext_export_symbols() reads the wrong names, so modules can't link against symbols other modules export. After linking, the helper now finds such regions and raises the alignment of their first section, which already sits at a page-aligned address, so objcopy places it at an aligned file offset. This only applies to -r builds. main already has such misaligned regions in 11 of 22 PTL modules, which is harmless only because none of them export symbols.
1. Merge sections of relocatable modules. Before calculating addresses, the helper first partially links all objects and libraries into one object, using --force-group-allocation and a small linker script (scripts/llext_merge_sections.ld) that folds .text.*, .rodata.*, .data.* and .bss.* into one section each. .cold, .coldrodata and other specially named sections are untouched. If the linker rejects the option, the helper warns and falls back to the old behaviour.
2. Drop relocations that need no run-time action. About 85% of the relocations in a partially linked Xtensa object are no-ops for the loader: R_XTENSA_NONE, R_XTENSA_ASM_EXPAND, and R_XTENSA_SLOT0_OP for PC-relative references within a section, which the linker has already resolved. The loader still reads each entry, its symbol and the instruction from the module image in IMR, at about 1.7µs per cache miss on PTL. The helper now removes them after linking, using the same check as the loader's r_xtensa_slot0_op_relocate(), so the result is identical.

Results

TFLM wake-word module on PTL (aphid), GCC (Zephyr SDK 1.0.1), first instantiation:

	before	after
sections	5721 (1685 run from IMR)	25 (only .cold in IMR)
relocations	14764	2162
.llext size	1028KiB	657KiB merged, 527KiB also pruned¹
llext_load()	fails (-ENOMEM); ~208ms with a 64KiB heap, then mapping fails	~20ms
inference	—	698k cycles (768k when built into the base firmware)

¹ including ~10KiB of libc/libgcc code that the module links in on the branch below.

The relocation pass alone went from 73ms to 21ms. Of the remaining ~20ms total, about half was building ext->sym_tab, which a Zephyr change removes (see below). Mapping and copying into SRAM adds another 14–34ms, limited by IMR read bandwidth (~15MB/s).

For C modules nothing much changes: they mostly have a handful of sections already, and the pruning only removes entries the loader ignores. I checked that volume builds into the same layout either way.

Dependencies / not in this PR

Loading C++ modules end to end on Xtensa also needs these Zephyr LLEXT fixes, on lgirdwood/zephyr llext-cpp-modules (not sent upstream yet):

• dispatch STB_WEAK symbols
• resolve symbols defined in the extension directly
• weak GOT addend fix
• handle R_XTENSA_PLT
• resolve undefined weak symbols to 0
• build ext->sym_tab only when it's used
• export snprintk/vsnprintk, sys_clock_cycle_get_32 and xtensa_arch_except

These are independent of this PR. The module-specific changes (extra exports, linking libc/libgcc into the module) are on lgirdwood/sof llext-cpp-modules.

Testing

• PTL: built with GCC, loaded and run on silicon; inference runs with stable cycle counts over repeated runs and module reloads. Model outputs weren't compared against a built-in reference.
• The helper from this branch was run against the objects of a PTL build: for the C++ module and for volume it produces the same sections and relocations as the in-tree build.
• xt-clang (RI-2022.10), which is when the build uses -r modules: PTL build on aphid with sof-hda-generic-ace3-4ch.tplg; EQ_IIR (linking against aux1_iir), EQ_FIR, DRC, PEAKVOL and MIXIN load and run on every PCM, same as on main. Without the alignment commit, EQ_IIR failed to link (cannot find iir_df1, IPC error 104), the failure the first CI run of this PR hit. After the change, no module in the PTL build has a misaligned region.
• Not tested: LLVM linkers. If a linker rejects --force-group-allocation, the helper prints a warning and falls back to the old behaviour.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[Copilot]

🔵 Needs a closer look

Two-stage linking and direct ELF rewriting need human validation beyond the tested GCC/PTL configuration.

No open issues 🎉

What changed in this PR

Updates build-time LLEXT processing to make large C++ relocatable modules loadable and faster to load, without changing firmware or loader code.

Changes:

• Pre-links objects and libraries, merging standard sections with a fallback if pre-linking fails.
• Removes Xtensa relocations that require no runtime action.

File	Description
scripts/​llext_merge_sections.ld	Merges standard sections while preserving specially named sections.
scripts/​llext_link_helper.py	Adds pre-linking, merged-section address calculation, and relocation pruning.

_{Review effort: Balanced}

[intel-sofci]

PR 11316: test results

Run date: 2026-10-21 16:53 UTC

Tested commit: 3b188233a1c24f16f177e213c541fe215b7056fd