External Flash and QSPI Settings

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Constantin — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 12:25:12 GMT

Okay found the solution. Quiet obvious. The example for qspi enables the QSPI mode of the memory. Hence, the QSPI can be used. This is missing insde the nrf_block_dev_qspi.c inside the init routine. You have to add the following lines to started from e.g. 388:

    // Switch to qspi mode
    uint8_t temporary = 0x40;
    cinstr_cfg.opcode = QSPI_STD_CMD_WRSR;
    cinstr_cfg.length = NRF_QSPI_CINSTR_LEN_2B;
    ret = nrf_drv_qspi_cinstr_xfer(&cinstr_cfg, &temporary, NULL);
    APP_ERROR_CHECK(ret);

This will enable the QSPI of the memory chip and it is afterwards possible to used the QSPI_CONFIG_WRITEOC = 3 and QSPI_CONFIG_READOC = 4.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Constantin — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 11:58:32 GMT

Any update. With SDK 17 still the same error. Would be good to have the example running as expected or?

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Hung Bui — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 21:24:58 GMT

I'm afraid we don't have an update on this.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Anantha Keshava — Mon, 23 Jul 2018 16:49:37 GMT

Hung Bui,

Was there any resolution to this by the developers? I'm about to attempt a similar thing on the v15.0 with the nRF52840 Preview DK.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Hung Bui — Fri, 30 Jun 2017 08:30:46 GMT

Hi Fan,

Thanks for the instruction, I can see the same thing here. I reported it to the developer. will get back to you if we find something.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Fan Jiaming — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 14:12:37 GMT

Yes, I tried the qspi example without any modification and it works. I am aware that it is using READ4IO and PP4IO, that's why I am confused why the USB MSC example doesn't work with that. I did not mix the FATFS with the USB MSC, in the original example, the FATFS is uninitialied before the USB MSC is turned on. When I do the modification, I keep that part as well. In fact, I merely deleted the instantiation of the other block devices and the rest of the initialization and handlers and their contents remain the same. If it is possible, may be you could also try to adjust the setting in the USB MSC example? If the issues are really with the setting, changing it in the example without any other modification should be enough to trigger the error.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Hung Bui — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 13:46:44 GMT

@Fan: We should go step by step. Have you tried \examples\peripheral\qspi , no modification ? As far as I can see it's using Read4IO for reading and PP4IO for writing. And it's working well on my computer.

There is a note in the \examples\peripheral\usbd_msc\ that says:

This example allows you to manipulate the file system (on QSPI memory) only while USB is not connected. If USB is connected, access to the file system from a user application is not possible because MSC is not designed to allow access to the file system from multiple sources.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Fan Jiaming — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 12:49:07 GMT

I tested it with the MX25R64 chip onboard, I trimmed off the excess code for the other block device and left only QSPI. But as soon as I use more data lines, the FATFS cannot mount the chip with FR_NO_FILESYSTEM as the return value and USB MSC unable to open the drive as well as do any write operations. Only after I return to use FASTREAD and PP, and reformat the chip then it becomes usable.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Hung Bui — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 12:07:50 GMT

Did you test it with the flash chip on the nRF52840 DK (MX25R64) or the Micron chip ?

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Fan Jiaming — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 08:59:29 GMT

Hi, yes, I actually try it myself as well. But when I try to use READ4IO or PP4IO with FATFS or with the USB MSC example found in the same folder, the program failed to function normally. More specifically, I have tried with READ2O and the program still runs, but QSPI_CONFIG_WRITEOC doesn't seem to be able to set to higher than PP.

RE: External Flash and QSPI Settings

Hung Bui — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:10:47 GMT

Hi Fan,

I don't have much experience with QSPI but isn't in our example \examples\peripheral\qspi in SDK v13 where we interface with the external memory MX25R64, we use 4 lines for SIO (P0.20 to P0.23) and QSPI_CONFIG_READOC set to READ4IO and QSPI_CONFIG_WRITEOC set to PP4IO ?