A guide to in-system programming flash devices on the SP7350 platform

This guide is designed to provide a step-by-step walkthrough on in-system programming (ISP) for flash devices on the SP7350 platform. Covering a range of devices including eMMC, SPI-NOR flashes, SPI-NAND flashes, and 8-bit NAND flashes, the document aims to simplify the ISP process. Follow the outlined steps to seamlessly download, compile, and write images to flash devices, ultimately enabling you to boot the system from these devices.

Download and compile source files of SP7350

Please refer to: A guide to downloading and compiling SP7350 code

for downloading and compiling sources for SP7350 platforms.

Copy ISPBOOOT.BIN to a USB flash drive

After compilation processes, a binary file ISPBOOOT.BIN is stored in out folder in project’s top directory. Please copy the ISPBOOOT.BIN file to the root directory of a USB flash drive formatted to DOS/Windows FAT32 or FAT16 file-system. Note that the FAT32 or FAT16 file-system should be in the first or the sole partition of the USB flash drive.

Set boot-selection switch to “Boot from USB”

Set boot-selection switches to “Boot from USB”. For example, if you are using SP7350 Evaluation Board, please set boot-selection switch SW2 to all OFF (1111) and SW3 to OFF-OFF-ON-OFF (1101) for booting from a USB flash drive. Refer to picture below, boot-selection switch SW2 and SW3 of SP7350 Evaluation Board is set to “Boot from USB.”

Refer to Appendix for details of boot selection switches of SP7350 Evaluation Board and boot-strap pins of SP7350.

Write all images to flash device

Plug the USB flash drive which contains ISPBOOOT.BIN into an USB socket (either USB2.0 or USB3.0 socket) of SP7350 platforms and turn on power of the SP7350 platform. After power on, SP7350 will initiate the boot process, loading images from the USB drive. It first loads x-boot from ISPBOOOT.BIN. x-boot loads fip and U-Boot images. U-Boot will then loads all images, verify md5-checksum and write them to flash device one by one.

Wait for the process to complete. Finally, you will see screen like:

“ISP all: Done” means all images were written to eMMC successfully.

Boot system from flash device

Set boot-select switch to boot from flash device, for example, in previous step, you write images to an eMMC device, please set boot select switch to “boot from eMMC device”. If you are using SP7350 Evalution board, please set boot-selection switch SW2 to all OFF (1111) and SW3 to all OFF (1111) for booting from the eMMC device. Refer to picture below:

Now, you are ready to boot SP7350 from eMMC device. Turn on power of SP7350 platform again to boot system.

In-system program (ISP) from an SD card

Note that you can also copy your ISPBOOOT.BIN file to root directory of a micro SD card to do in-system-program to a flash device. The SD card be formatted to DOS/Windows FAT32 or FAT16 file-system. Note that SP7350 only detects ISPBOOOT.BIN in the first partition.

Set boot-selection switch to “boot from SD card”. For example, if you are using SP7350 Evaluation Board, please set boot-selection switch SW2 to all OFF (1111) and SW3 to OFF-OFF-ON-ON (1100) for booting from SD card.

Plug your SD card into micro SD socket of SP7021 board, and then turn on power of SP7350 platform. SP7350 will start to do ISP from SD card as in-system program from a USB flash drive.

Appendix

Boot-selection switch of SP7350 Evaluation Board

Refer to definition of boot selection switch of SP7350 Valuation Board below:

“1” means switch OFF while “0” means switch ON. “x” means don’t care.

Boot-strap pins of SP7350

Refer to definition of boot-strap pins of SP7350 below: