What is difference between U-boot.bin and uImage.bin

Question

I am confused between the u-boot.bin and uImage.bin. I guess uImage.bin is nothing but the compressed version of u-boot.bin and it size should be less than u-boot.bin. But in my build environment what I found is u-boot.bin size is lesser than uImage.bin.

Could anybody let me know what is difference between u-boot.bin and uImage.bin??

Answer 1

uboot.bin is the bootloader, i.e. uboot, uImage.bin is the kernel image

Usually, in embedded systems the NAND flash is partitioned in four parts:

1. A partition for the bootloader (here goes uboot.bin)
2. A small partition where uboot saves its environment variables
3. A partition for the kernel (here goes uImage.bin)
4. A partition for the rootfs

Answer 2

uboot.bin is the binary file of U-boot bootloader.
uImage is a small kernel image with modified header for Uboot enabling U-boot to load this kernel image