UICR.BOOTLOADERADDR writing specifics

[Elkana]

Hi,

SDK documentation says "You cannot write to UICR.BOOTLOADERADDR when using the default J-Link target driver in IAR".
Some threads suggested it is only nRF51 issue, but in my experience this is true for nRF52840 - J-Link "write" to address 0x10001014 and even read it - but the MBR doesn't seem to read the same value.

When using nrfjprog - all goes well - just as documented.

I wanted to understand the root cause of this:
(a) To maximize the lesson learned of this process
(b) Our production uses PE Micro Cyclone Pro (with .sap file) - are they going to be able to set the UICR.BOOTLOADERADDR? 
     Do we have to add SEGGER emulator to production in order to burn an image which includes bootloader?
(c) Is there another way around it?

Thanks,

Elkana

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi Elkana,

a) The root cause of this issue is that the flash algorithm in IAR does not know that the UICR address range is flash memory, therefore it will not write to it.

b) I do not have any experience with the PE Micro Cyclone Pro, but I would expect that if it does not work out of the box there should be some way to configure it so that it will be able to program flash in the UICR memory range as well.

c) It is just a matter of configuring the tools properly. The UICR is just normal flash, but you need to tell it to the programming tool.

Best regards,

Einar

[Elkana]

In this case, Nordic can write a new flash loader (or board descriptor) to allow IAR writing to these addresses.

You can have a look in http://supp.iar.com/FilesPublic/UPDINFO/004916/arm/doc/FlashLoaderGuide.pdf.
On page 13 there is an example how to define more than 1 flash address spaces.

[Elkana]

Currently PE-Micro doesn't support NRF52840 at all (not to mention UICR).
Please forward it to the relevant team in NordicSemi.

www.pemicro.com/.../index.cfm