Writing firmware in SES issues

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 11:26:12 GMT

Yes it worked ! :)

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 10:57:35 GMT

Yes, that might work. I haven't tried it myself.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 10:35:21 GMT

I think I did it with JFlash

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:20:30 GMT

I am looking for an easy solution that will not take time and objCopy seems that is not easy to handle

do you know if hex2bin could do the job?
hex2bin.sourceforge.net/

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:13:43 GMT

You can use it to merge bin files that don't have gaps. objcopy is included with the GCC toolchain which can be downloaded at: https://developer.arm.com/Tools%20and%20Software/GNU%20Toolchain

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 09:05:00 GMT

ok so what is the purpose of this command?

Could you give me a hint on how to install objCopy so that I can use it? Is there some guide or something?

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 08:59:42 GMT

It won't work with mergehex as it lacks the option to fill empty sections with 0xFFs.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 08:56:41 GMT

Ok I will try that. I also tried the mergehex.exe to convert 2 hex files (app + softdevice) in one .bin file but it seems to work only when you name the output file as a .hex. One of the options though that sets the output file format to BIN|HEX|ELF doesn't work . Any ideas on how to do that with mergehex?

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 07:44:55 GMT

You need to link the application to start at address 0x0 if you want it to boot without the Softdevice present, since address 0x0 is the entry point after reset. If you are working only with .bin files, you can convert the Softdevice .hex file into a binary file using 'objcopy'.

$ arm-none-eabi-objcopy --gap-fill 0xff --input-target=ihex --output-target=binary s132_nrf52_x.x.x_softdevice.hex softdevice.bin

Then you can load the application and Softdevice separately. Just remember to use the correct offset.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 11:49:02 GMT

UPDATE: I tried the blinky example (blank and MBR). I created the .bin file and after I performed Download File > Download Binary File on the DK and I reset the board , it worked.

Then I tried to do the same thing with my project firmware but it doesn't work..
I checked the memory addresses:

Application FW: 0x00026000 - 0x000413DB , Size: 111580 bytes

SoftDevice FW: 0x00001000 - 0x00025FFF, Size: 151016 bytes

MasterBootRecord : 0x00 - 0x00000FFF, Size: 4096 bytes

Normally, when Segger performs the whole process, I also include the softdevice .hex file in the "Loader" option in project options so that to also write the softdevice in flash along with the app firmware and it works ok as expected.

Now that I want to do the same thing manually with Download File > Download Binary File, in order to make it a bit easier, I modified my app firmware by removing BLE initialization functions in main() and then, since only application firmware is needed (without softDevice) I wrote with Download File > Download Binary File, only the .bin file of the app firmware again. So I re-created the .bin file and set the starting address for the .bin to be written in MCU flash at 0x00026000. But the device crashed again.

What am I doing wrong here?

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:40:16 GMT

" You need to reset the board after programming the *.hex or *.bin file to your board for execution to start." -> Ok I will try that.

"For distributing the compiled firmware to others..." Yes I know but the tool he is using accepts only bin files so that is why I need to check that the bin file works.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:35:19 GMT

Hi,

You need to reset the board after programming the *.hex or *.bin file to your board for execution to start. For distributing the compiled firmware to others, it is often more convenient to use the generated *.hex file. For bin files, you have to specify the starting address of the application when programming the FW.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

masterLee — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:26:56 GMT

Hi Vidar,

I tried the blinky example (blank) to make things more simple. Yes the way you mention works but when I try to do it with Download file > ... it doesn't work...

My core issue here is the following.
I want to send to a colleague the .bin file of my code so that he can perform some tests he wants and when I place the .bin file with "Download File > Download Binary File" to check that the code is uploaded to the chip without issues it did not work. So I thought to do the same thing with the .elf file and it didn't work either.

RE: Writing firmware in SES issues

Vidar Berg — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:08:25 GMT

Hello,

Does it work if you click this button instead:

? Note that the "Download .elf" button will only program the application FW. It will not include other files such as the Softdevice.