Factory flash loader

[jerker]

Posted on October 27, 2005 at 19:23

Factory flash loader

[jerker]

Posted on October 27, 2005 at 06:49

I'm looking for a way to load my bootloader into the flash for the very first time when manufacturing our product. Is there any other tools availble for this besides the JTAG-environments. OR does the chip has a preloaded interface for this, (many chips has a predefined UART for this in a special boot mode).

[tech9]

Posted on October 27, 2005 at 13:09

Hi JF,

from what I gathered throughout this forum (especially the older pages and discussions), you're in for some disappointment... ST won't support the bootloader that is supposedly already built in the chip, and if you read the manual for the STR7, they mention it in the 5th version, and in the 6th, it's gone! So I guess you can focus on AN2078, but if your code is bigger than 56KB, you're screwed again. And you also need a first programming with JTAG. (little detail... ! ) So you do like me, I am implementing a custom IAP that stores received packets in external flash memory, and than I run from RAM so I can erase the chip and re-program it with the stored code. Works great in debug mode, but won't go when I'm not watching. Still working on it. And I still need to burn something in the flash at the first time using the JTAG port. If anyone has had a better workaround for this situation, please let us know! Best regards, tech

[cgrun]

Posted on October 27, 2005 at 19:23

I've write a custom bootloader that only use the first sector of the STR710.

at the boot i check a gpio to see if the user want to stay on the loader, and if a ''magic'' on flash is not written at the end of the image i stay on the loader ... the loader use an uart to get the flash data and write it directly to the flash... The only hard thing was that the str710 cann't write on the same bank that the program is running, so i move MANUALLY my erase/program subroutine to a small area of the internall ram and the i branch to it ... i cann't publish the whole bootloader but if you have a inquiry i can give you an advice on it... Sincerely Chris.