PEmicro - P&E Microcomputer Systems: Over 30 years as an Industry leader in Embedded Systems Development Tools, debug probes, and production programmers

Thursday, February 16, 2017

How to do a complete Mass Erase (including Kinetis Flexmem partitioning) with Cyclone?
Angelo M. Feb 16, 2017 at 05:20 PM (17:20 hours)
Staff: Juan S.

2 comments

I am using the Cyclone for ARM (2014 edition with LCD) to program a MK22FX512VLH12 at the board level stage of our production.

In the Cyclone Image Creation Utility Version 5.21.00.00, I use this list of commands:
CC "points to freescale_k22fx512m12_pflash_dflash_eeprom.arp in the support file directory"
SS  "points to our .elf file
PM
VM

Once our product is programed and restarts, our product sets its flexmem partition to our desired size and initializes that part of its memory memory default parameters.

We use the same mainboard in multiple products.   If I use the Cyclone for ARM to reprogram the board, the new firmware is loaded, but the flexmem partition remains and the data in flexmem is not erased.    To truly erase the whole device, I need to connect to my development tools (CodeWarrior and a Multilink Universal) and execute an "Erase Whole Device" from the Flash Programmer.

Can the Cyclone for ARM be configured to complete a true mass erase as can be done through my development tools?

I've tried several different permutations of adding the Erase Module command inside the Cyclone Image Creation Utility, to achieve this.   But that command also does not do a full mass erase of the MK22FX512VLH12's flash.

Comment #1 Angelo M. - February 16, 2017 - 05:20 PM (17:20 hours)

Comments

I modified "freescale_k22fx512m12_pflash_dflash_eeprom.arp" by commenting out the following line within the script:
;PRESERVE_PARTITION            ;Preserve Partition through erase 
and saved it as a new file

I then added an erase before the program module so that my list of commands in the Cyclone Image Creation Utility now reads:
CC "points to my saved and modified copy of the .arp file"
SS  "points to our .elf file"
EM
PM
VM

The removal of the Preserve_Partition line in the script AND the addition of the EM command together seem to be correctly erasing the flexmem parition.  Just making one change or the other does not seem to do it, only the combination of the two; even though I believe it is stated that the PM command also initiates an erase before programming.

Comment #2 Angelo M. - February 20, 2017 - 07:18 PM (19:18 hours)

Add comment

Want to comment? Please login or create a new PEMicro account.