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Setup — Preparing the EVBA7 Eval Board for eCos Development

Overview

In a typical development environment, the EVBA7 Eval Board boots from internal flash into the GDB stubrom monitor or RedBoot. eCos applications are configured for RAM startup and then downloaded and run on the board via the debugger arm-eabi-gdb. Preparing the board therefore usually involves programming a suitable ROM or RedBoot image into flash memory.

For serial communications, all versions run with 8 bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit at 38400 baud. This baud rate can be changed via the configuration option CYGNUM_HAL_VIRTUAL_VECTOR_CONSOLE_CHANNEL_BAUD and rebuilding the stubrom or RedBoot.

Initial Installation

Flash Installation

This process assumes that a Microsoft Windows machine with the Ashling FlashLPC Utility installed is available. The first step is to connect the RS232 cable supplied with the EVBA7 between port 0 of the EVBA7 and the host PC. Now install the jumper labelled “ENABLE SERIAL ISP”. On the base EVBA7 this is jumper JP6; on boards fitted with one of the FA-EVBA7 adaptors, this is JP5 on the adaptor; on boards fitted with a PA-EVBA7 adaptor, this is JP3 on the adaptor. Refer to the board documentation for full details. Apply the power, or press the reset button.

The board is now running a special Philips boot loader. Start the FlashLPC Utility, and ensure that the selected device matches the device installed on the EVBA7. Choose the appropriate COM port that is being used on your PC and select 115200 baud for both the initial and final baud rates. Set the Crystal KHz value to 14745, ensure that the stop bits value is set to 1 and the packet size is set to 100%. Establish communication with the board by pressing the “Connect” button.

Now in the “Flash Programming” section, select the stubrom.srec or redboot.srec file. Set the file format to “S-Record Format”,select “Erase individual sectors before programming” under the Programming Options and ensure that “Automatically add checksum to vector table” is ticked. Finally press “Program”, or “Program and Verify” to program the ROM image.

When the process completes, remove the “ENABLE SERIAL ISP” jumper. Verify the programming has been successful by starting a terminal emulation application such as HyperTerminal on the host PC and set the serial communication parameters to 38400 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit (8N1) and no flow control (handshaking). Reset the board and the stubrom should start. For boards programmed with GDB stubs the output should be similar to the following:

+$T050f:ec070000;0d:28080040;#52

This is the stubrom attempting to communicate with GDB and indicates that it is functioning correctly.

For boards fitted with RedBoot, you should see the RedBoot startup messages ending with a RedBoot prompt.

Rebuilding GDB Stubrom

Should it prove necessary to rebuild the Stubrom binary, this is done most conveniently at the command line. Assuming your PATH and ECOS_REPOSITORY environment variables have been set correctly, the steps needed to rebuild the stubrom are:

$ mkdir stub_rom
$ cd stub_rom
$ ecosconfig new evba7 stubs
$ ecosconfig resolve
$ ecosconfig tree
$ make

At the end of the build the install/bin subdirectory should contain the file stubrom.srec.

Rebuilding RedBoot

Should it prove necessary to rebuild the RedBoot binary, this is done most conveniently at the command line. Assuming your PATH and ECOS_REPOSITORY environment variables have been set correctly, the steps needed to rebuild RedBoot are:

$ mkdir evba7_redboot
$ cd evba7_redboot
$ ecosconfig new evba7_2294 redboot
$ ecosconfig import $ECOS_REPOSITORY/hal/arm/lpc2000/evba7/current/misc/redboot_ROM.ecm
$ ecosconfig resolve
$ ecosconfig tree
$ make

At the end of the build the install/bin subdirectory should contain the file redboot.srec.