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Have a RIoTboard question?  Ask the expert, John McLellan

Former Member

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John McLellanJohn McLellan
John McLellan is a hardware hacker, maker, and embedded systems guy with more than 10 years semiconductor experience at Freescale.
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  • Hi,

     

    do you have any advice on how to flash your own operating system onto the riotboard?

    also, apart from the imx6SDK, are there at least header files specific to the riotbard in order to use things like the LEDs (or is it just freescale)?

     

    When using the imx6SDK what is the board revision (B ?), type (SABRE_AI,SMART_DEVICE,EVK,EVB?)  and chip (MX6SDL?) ?

    I expect these questions to be pretty stupid and perhaps the answer is obvious but i've really ran out of ideas where to look ...

     

    kind regards, yogo

  • in reply to Former Member

    Scrooge McDuck wrote:

    also, apart from the imx6SDK, are there at least header files specific to the riotbard in order to use things like the LEDs (or is it just freescale)?

    Assuming Linux, since you didn't say what OS you want to use, /sys/class/leds why would you need header files ?

    Otherwise, the leds are just connected to a gpio, so /sys/class/gpio

     

    When using the imx6SDK what is the board revision (B ?), type (SABRE_AI,SMART_DEVICE,EVK,EVB?) 

    The board is designed and manufactured by Embest / element14, not Freescale, so I wouldn't expect it'll match any of those Freescale reference boards. It might be close to some, but I'd be surprised if you find full support for this board in the SDK.

     

    and chip (MX6SDL?) ?

     

    MCIMX6S5DVM10AB

     

    image

    Table from p4 of IMX6SDLCEC.pdf

     

    Download the IMX6SDLRM.pdf from http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX6S&fpsp=1&tab=Documentation_Tab it probably has everything you could ever want to know about the SoC (plenty more docs on that page if you're missing anything), combine that knowledge with the schematics from http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-65504/l/riotboard-schematics-for-riotboard  and you can do whatever you like.

     

    Did you try the user manual ?  http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-65502/l/riotboard-user-manual-for-riotboard-platform

    It has details of where to get the embest provided source that supports this board as well as details on how to load different OS images.

  • in reply to Former Member

    thank you for your reply!

     

    first: i dont want to use linux. my intentions are to flash to the internal boot-ROM. At first just a single test-program turning an LED on, then - later - a small (32KB) OS.

    Maybe it's a bad idea to use the internal ROM of the chip, so i will probably have to use the 4GB eMMC (but how? / how does the program that is already present in the boot-ROM find my code?).

    But i need - and there certainly must be - a file containing the names and mapping of registers necessary to put the corresponding GPIO-port in the out-Mode and then output a 1 in order to get the LED to emit light. I'm quite confident that what I want is something like the iMX6_Platform_SDK but i'm not entirely sure.

     

    I know the files you have provided links to; but: i need to make defines corresponding to one of these configurations:

    valid_builds=( "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai""a"
               "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai" "b"
               "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai" "c"
               "mx6dq"  "evb"      "a"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device""a"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device" "b"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device" "c"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "a"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "b"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "c"
               "mx6sdl" "evb"      "a"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "a"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "b"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "c"
               "mx6sl"  "evk"      "a")

    my guess is: "mx6sdl" being "solo/dualLite", "evb" and "b" (not sure this directly corresponds to the freescale/iMX6 part-no).

    There must be some place to find this kind of information.. :-/ i'm confused

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  • in reply to Former Member

    thank you for your reply!

     

    first: i dont want to use linux. my intentions are to flash to the internal boot-ROM. At first just a single test-program turning an LED on, then - later - a small (32KB) OS.

    Maybe it's a bad idea to use the internal ROM of the chip, so i will probably have to use the 4GB eMMC (but how? / how does the program that is already present in the boot-ROM find my code?).

    But i need - and there certainly must be - a file containing the names and mapping of registers necessary to put the corresponding GPIO-port in the out-Mode and then output a 1 in order to get the LED to emit light. I'm quite confident that what I want is something like the iMX6_Platform_SDK but i'm not entirely sure.

     

    I know the files you have provided links to; but: i need to make defines corresponding to one of these configurations:

    valid_builds=( "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai""a"
               "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai" "b"
               "mx6dq"  "sabre_ai" "c"
               "mx6dq"  "evb"      "a"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device""a"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device" "b"
               "mx6dq"  "smart_device" "c"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "a"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "b"
               "mx6sdl" "sabre_ai" "c"
               "mx6sdl" "evb"      "a"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "a"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "b"
               "mx6sdl" "smart_device" "c"
               "mx6sl"  "evk"      "a")

    my guess is: "mx6sdl" being "solo/dualLite", "evb" and "b" (not sure this directly corresponds to the freescale/iMX6 part-no).

    There must be some place to find this kind of information.. :-/ i'm confused

Children
  • in reply to Former Member

    Scrooge McDuck wrote:

     

    first: i dont want to use linux. my intentions are to flash to the internal boot-ROM.

    I don't think that's possible. As far as I know the boot rom isn't something that we can program, it contains things like the 'secure boot' mode code. If we were able to overwrite it then it wouldn't be very secure.

    The likelyhood is that it's either mask programmed into the silicon and therefore completely unalterable, or possibly as a One-Time-Programmable (OTP) block that Freescale burn in during chip level testing.

     

    There must be some place to find this kind of information.. :-/ i'm confused

    There is, it's all in the IMX6SDLRM document.  The doc is 5789 pages long, I have a feeling you may be more confused after you've read it image

     

    I'm in no way trying to be condescending here, but perhaps an Arduino would be a better starting point?   Otherwise, if you want to use the i.MX6 at such a low level you really do need to start reading the easily available docs. The information you're looking for is all there. Start with Chapter 8 on how the boot rom finds your code on eMMC, then try Chapter 37 on IOMUX and Chapter 29 on GPIO

  • in reply to Former Member

    Yes, the BootROM is unchangable and cannot be programmed. And I agree, if you're looking on diving into something at the chip level, a smaller microcontroller might be a better option. The Riotboard uses a MPU, which is more for running at the OS level.