Open SDA

I tried getting some response using the instructions in the OpenSDA users guide from http://www.pemicro.com/opensda/ but no luck.

I've heard that there will be support for it at some point, but nothing more than that.

I'm not really sure how useful that usb-serial connection will be, given that most of the usefull stuff will be directed towards the debug connector at J18 by default.

THe device is a composite usb device. It will support a serial port and debug port at the same time. It's not hard to redirect the console. Will only need a USB cable to get serial. Seems to me they would want at least the serial running to make things easy.

You'd think.

On the couple of boards I have, I get no usb devices enumerated when I connect to that port, which would appear to suggest there's either no firmware on the device, or that what's on it doesn't do the OpenSDA features.

Is yours any different? Do you see anything enumerated if you connect it to a PC?

Mine doesn't enumerate either. Hope one doesn't need a jtag programmer to install the software. SHould have been setup to use the USB boot loader. Thought this was really going to be a great board. It's very disappointing.

I still think it's a good board, but I don't understand what the point is in loading the OpenSDA parts without the firmware.  If jtag is needed then I suspect that very few people will bother, especially as J17 isn't installed.

Only other way I can see from the schematics is if it can somehow detect a specially formatted SD card in J6 and read OpenSDA firmware from there.

let me check with our firmware team if there is a Open SDA support available .

if it can somehow detect a specially formatted SD card in J6 and read OpenSDA firmware from there

but its connected to SPI flash.

Once the burn SDA_BURN_EN is active, it will interface with SPI flash rather than  SDCARD, i guess.

sry , i misread a bit,

the SD is supported SDA_SD2_DATA3.

except I haven't seen a board with a spi flash installed.

Yep, you could get to SPI flash, but U22 isn't populated.

SDA_BURN_EN seems to be controlled by U23 itself, so presumably some OpenSDA firmware can take control of, or override the SD card. So the question is whether or not there's some bootloader already installed on U23 such that it can either boot from the SD, or do some firmware update from it ?

Currently it seems that we can't get into OpenSDA bootloader mode using the instructions from the OpenSDA User Guide, so something is missing, it may just be some information we don't have, or something physically missing in the hardware, but right now we don't know what.

Needing to get a soldering iron and either install U22 or J17 is going to limit it's usefulness for a lot of people

Also, I suspect that if jtag is necessary to get OpenSDA working then people with jtag hardware and experience will just plug it straight into J10 and skip the OpenSDA stuff completely...  So hopefully there's another way or having the hardware onboard is going to end up being pointless.