Cryptocell and usb

[AintMina]

I was building the "console" sample code found in zephyr for my custom nrf52840 board and I managed to get it to work. But as soon as cryptocell gets enabled, it doesn't work anymore.

Q1:  Why doesn't the devicetree find "nordic,cryptocell"? I get a warning like this: Unknown node type "nordic,cryptocell"

- This also applies to nrf52840 Dongle and DK.

Q2: Cryptocell is enabled by default in nrf52840 devicetree which gets applied to all the boards (like nrf52840dongle and nrf52840dk and my custom board which uses nrf52840dongle as template). But this breaks the usb communication with the "console" sample on my custom board (It does build though).

- I can't test it with other boards since I only have nrf52dk and it doesn't support usb.

- I'm flashing it through mcuboot so I don't have access to debugger and I'm scared to use the nrf52dk as debugger since it already has bricked 3/5 devices.

Q3: The acl node has also a warning: Address range collides with flash-controller@4001e000 (both start at 0x4001e000)

- But it still works with it enabled.

I'm running Manjaro kde with linux66 kernel, v2.6.1 toolchain with v2.6.1 SDK installed through vscode extension.

This is the configuration which works:

And prj.conf:

CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_STACK=y
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PRODUCT="Testing"
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_PID=0x0851
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_VID=0x884E
CONFIG_USB_DEVICE_INITIALIZE_AT_BOOT=n

CONFIG_SERIAL=y
CONFIG_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_UART_LINE_CTRL=y

 

And board defconfig:

CONFIG_SOC_SERIES_NRF52X=y
CONFIG_SOC_NRF52840_QIAA=y
CONFIG_BOARD_NRF52840_CUSTOM=y

# ??????
CONFIG_BOARD_ENABLE_DCDC=n

# 32K clock
CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC=y
CONFIG_CLOCK_CONTROL_NRF_K32SRC_RC_CALIBRATION=y

# Enable MPU
CONFIG_ARM_MPU=y

# enable GPIO
CONFIG_GPIO=y

# Enable Zephyr application to be booted by MCUboot
CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT=y
CONFIG_DISABLE_FLASH_PATCH=y

[AintMina]

Clearly you didnt read ***. I have stated that I DO NOT have access to any DK board which has USB connected to the MCU.

AintMina said:

1. Installed fresh ubuntu 22.04 virtual machine

2. Installed vscode

3. Installed nrf extension pack for vscode

4. Installed 2.6.1 toolchain and SDK from vscode extension

5. Build "console" sample code for my custom boardnrf52840_custom.dts

6. Opened any serial terminal and saw the hello world message

7. Enable cryptocell in board files OR app overlay, delete build folder and build again

8. Serial terminal cannot connect to it anymore nor does lsusb find the device anymore

[AintMina]

Apparently cryptocell only works with debugger attached. Whats up with that?

[AintMina]

Great, this place removes posts...

and now the ****** board is bricked...

1. Why did the debugger erase my bootloader even though the app was built for it?

2. How did the debugger(NRF52dk) brick the board even though the code was running before bricking it?

Well, I managed to get it unbricked by messing around with gpio registers from JLinkExe. Apparently it needs to be connected with JLinkExe every time it disappears. So theres something funky going on with nrfutil...

But now I can't get the mcuboot to work and I don't have the original mcuboot config which we managed to get to work after a long battle...

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

Regarding "1. Why did the debugger erase my bootloader even though the app was built for it?", I do not know how you used it, but if you do a full erase / erase all (which you often do when programming or debugging), that will erase the whole flash, includign any bootlaoders and the UICR. If you just want to re-flash the application you can seelct to use sector erase. If you are using nRF Connect for VS code for programming you can select if you want to do a full erase or not when flashing, as explaind in this post.

Regarding "2. How did the debugger(NRF52dk) brick the board even though the code was running before bricking it?" I do not know which state it what in when  you refer to it as "bricked" nor how it got there. If you can share details about how it behaved when you define it as "bricked", how it ended up in that state and hwo it receoverd, we may be able to understand more.

Generally, there is no need to use a debugger to get CrytpoCell to work, and also no conflict between CryptoCell and USB. So I suspect there are other more fundamental issues with your device or setup. I am also not able to understand the comments about debugger bricking your device. I kindly ask that you elaborate much more and provide exact details if you want specific feedback.

It seems to me that you are seeing a significant number of seemingly unrelated issues that are difficult to explain. I would suggest that you try to reduce the numer fo unkowns in the beginning by obtaining a DK so tha that you have known good hardware and test parts of your firmware on that. Then you can gradually move to your custom HW. Alternatively, there is an absolute requierment that you are able to debug your hardware.

[AintMina]

To the first part:

The problem is that in vscode the "flash", "erase and flash" and "debug" all use "merged.hex" and not the APP. Meaning everytime I flash my app with the debugger I replace my working bootloader with the non working one. This is a terrible way of doing things if bootloader and app are developed by different people or departments. This means I HAVE to have the bootloader on my computer when I want to debug an app for it.

The second part:

I consider the device bricked when it does not show up in the programming app. The weird part about it was that vscode and nrf connect app did not find the device, but JLinkExe did. And after connecting through JLinkExe, vscode and nrf connect app found it.

And yes, the problem is that cryptocell doesn't work without debugger attached. This was the same problem which "deleted" my bootloader since the APP also enabled cryptocell in the bootloader and overwrote it and thus bootloader didn't work anymore. This is the jankiest MCU I've ever used...

And why would I need DK to run the sample codes? I still havent been able to start writing the actual FW to this, because theres still something wrong with the config and that's what Im trying to figure out.

So, why is cryptocell only working with debugger?

Without debugger, the cryptocell app doesnt even reach main.

Im running the board in normal mode and DCDC is NOT enabled.