device-treedriversembeddedlinuxlinux-kernel
I was asking myself if a certain dtb that works with linux kernel version 3.18 is compatible with a linux kernel version 4.9.
I suppose not, because kernel code concerning the device tree likely changes over the time, but it somehow has to be compatible otherwise multiple dts/dtsi files have to change all the time.
I used google to investigate this, but even in the official documentation I couldn't find a word about compatibility throughout different kernel versions.
Have you tried consulting the Xilinx wiki?
This howto looks like it has everything you need to get what you want. There's links to a git repository with code as well as directions on how to build it. Here's the command to download the device-tree sources.
$ git clone git://github.com/Xilinx/device-tree.git
The Xilinx website also provides a excellent Getting Started resource if you're new to their toolhchain workflow. Here's a diagram that shows where the device trees fit in:
Given these details a very specific to a variance of Linux for the Xilinx platform I'm not going to include any of the details beyond the above here on U&L, since that wiki is maintained by a hardware vendor, Xilinx, that's supporting that version of the kernel for their hardware products to use.
Best Answer
The Device Tree is supposed to be a stable ABI so a device tree written for any version of the kernel should work with any following kernel version.
However, for practical reasons, this is quite often not the case. You can have a look at the following presentation from Thomas, explaining why: http://free-electrons.com/pub/conferences/2015/elc/petazzoni-dt-as-stable-abi-fairy-tale/petazzoni-dt-as-stable-abi-fairy-tale.pdf
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPRqIS9q6CY