U-boot uImage load speed from SD (on LCDK)

Hi All,

I'm trying to optimize boot time of my LCDK board based application.

Linux is on SD card, uImage on separate partition and using standard command line to load:

mmc rescan 0
fatls mmc 0:1 /
fatload mmc 0:1 c0700000 uImage
bootm

However, speed of loading uImage is very low, even the trimmed down 1.7MB version of the kernel image takes around 3s. I tested the speed of the SD card in a normal card reader it can read around 18MB/s, and the DAVINCI PSP performance guide (here http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/DaVinci_PSP_03.22.00.06_Device_Driver_Features_and_Performance_Guide) is also listing similarly high values.

Based on this, I'd expect sub-second load times for uImage.

U-boot is the stock version coming with the LCDK board, terminal says:

ver=U-Boot 2010.12 (May 07 2012 - 16:09:45)

Any hints, how to speed up this process?

Thanks,

Istvan