Reading and writing sensor data to external flash on nrf5340-dk

[erifat]

Hello,

I want to use external flash. I did some research on the subject. I am using SDK 2.6.1. I have a few questions.

1- Does the spi_flash example I examined work on external flash?

2- 2 core updates are actively used in the system. I need as much space as possible for data. I know there is 64MB space for external flash. But I don't know how the partition should be divided?

3-Is it the internal flash that appears as Flash0? I could not find a partition structure for the external flash in this example.

Is there an example where I can write data to external flash using Qspi?

Could you support me on the subject

[Elfving]

Hello,

1- Does the spi_flash example I examined work on external flash?

Yes, that is my understanding. Though note that it is not a sample made directly by nordic, so it might not work immediately with our devices right out of the box.

2- 2 core updates are actively used in the system. I need as much space as possible for data. I know there is 64MB space for external flash. But I don't know how the partition should be divided?

Are you saying that you are planning on doing a DFU in order to upgrade both cores of the 5340, and save the new image in external flash?

Regards,

Elfving

[erifat]

Hello,

Yes, I am currently saving the new image on the flash. When I activate the two core updates in projconf, it saves the new image on the external flash. How can I partition the external flash? If flash 0 means external flash, will it be enough to revise flash0?

[erifat]

Additionally, 128MB flash was installed. In the spi_flash example, I enter 134217728 as the qspi size, but the value shown in devicetree is 16MiB. Why? 

&qspi {

    status = "okay";

    pinctrl-0 = <&qspi_default>;

    pinctrl-1 = <&qspi_sleep>;

    pinctrl-names = "default", "sleep";

    mx25r64: mx25r6435f@0 {

        compatible = "nordic,qspi-nor";

        reg = <0>;

        /* MX25R64 supports only pp and pp4io */

        writeoc = "pp";

        /* MX25R64 supports all readoc options */

        readoc = "read4io";

        sck-frequency = <8000000>;

        jedec-id = [ef 40 18];

        sfdp-bfp = [

            e5 20 f1 ff  ff ff ff 03  44 eb 08 6b  08 3b 04 bb

            ee ff ff ff  ff ff 00 ff  ff ff 00 ff  0c 20 0f 52

            10 d8 00 ff  23 72 f5 00  82 ed 04 cc  44 83 68 44

            30 b0 30 b0  f7 c4 d5 5c  00 be 29 ff  f0 d0 ff ff

        ];

        size = <134217728>;

        has-dpd;

        t-enter-dpd = <10000>;

        t-exit-dpd = <35000>;

    };

};

[Elfving]

3-Is it the internal flash that appears as Flash0? I could not find a partition structure for the external flash in this example.

No, I do not believe so. You can see that the file is describing the dts of the nrf5340cpu, not the dk-board. You can also check the resulting dts file for the entire project in build/zephyr/zephyr.dts, which shows that this flash would be placed under the soc. I see this previous case by a colleague of mine has some examples. 

erifat said:

Yes, I am currently saving the new image on the flash. When I activate the two core updates in projconf, it saves the new image on the external flash. How can I partition the external flash? If flash 0 means external flash, will it be enough to revise flash0?

We have an example for this here (and another one for the NCS v2.7+ sysbuild here, in case anyone finds this in the future). For more info on this, see here.

erifat said:

Additionally, 128MB flash was installed. In the spi_flash example, I enter 134217728 as the qspi size, but the value shown in devicetree is 16MiB. Why? 

That is odd. So you are entering it there in the GUI? Are you seeing these changes reflected on the dts files as well, and not just the GUI? Do you get any error anywhere, eg. when hovering over the numbers with the cursor?

Regards,

Elfving

[Muhammed]

Elfving said:

No, I do not believe so. You can see that the file is describing the dts of the nrf5340cpu, not the dk-board. You can also check the resulting dts file for the entire project in build/zephyr/zephyr.dts, which shows that this flash would be placed under the soc.