diff --git a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
index 5481a0c68521..8db533cd816c 100644
--- a/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
+++ b/arch/mips/kernel/setup.c
@@ -700,7 +700,17 @@ static void __init arch_mem_init(char **cmdline_p)
 		memblock_reserve(crashk_res.start, resource_size(&crashk_res));
 #endif
 	device_tree_init();
+
+	/*
+	 * In order to reduce the possibility of kernel panic when failed to
+	 * get IO TLB memory under CONFIG_SWIOTLB, it is better to allocate
+	 * low memory as small as possible before plat_swiotlb_setup(), so
+	 * make sparse_init() using top-down allocation.
+	 */
+	memblock_set_bottom_up(false);
 	sparse_init();
+	memblock_set_bottom_up(true);
+
 	plat_swiotlb_setup();
 
 	dma_contiguous_reserve(PFN_PHYS(max_low_pfn));