TMS570LS1224: Hardware bootloader available for TMS570?

Hi Chuck --

Thanks for the fast reply. I figured that was the case (always needing some kind of code living in flash at the reset vector) but wanted to see if there were alternates.

I like the lockstep and other high-reliability features of the Hercules parts (copious amounts of ECC in device memories, including peripheral buffers / etc)., but I have ionizing radiation to deal with, and having my bootloader destroyed / corrupted rendering the part useless would be unfortunate. I was thinking if the silicon had masked in a simple state-machine driven BSL to load from some external hardened memory store (FRAM, etc.), that I could avoid using the flash entirely and keep my SW in SECDED-protected SRAM.

I assume that doesn't change your answer, but let me know if there are some other interesting solutions that I'm overlooking!

Hello Krunal,

I certainly understand your apprehension of using Flash for those purposes, but wouldn't RAM based code execution still be subject to the even more probability of corruption? I am not an expert on radiation and the impact of this on memory content, but I do know that there was a study completed by an independent party that used several different devices in an extraterrestrial environment to study the effects of space operation on the devices. Some presentation of the testing and results are at this link www.dlr.de/.../0803_(Underwood).pdf

Here is another good article where the Hercules device among others was subjected to Heavy ION testing by an independent organization as part of a study: ieeexplore.ieee.org/.../

Hopefully you will find this information helpful even if the device performance under heavy ION testing may or may not meet your needs.

Hi Chuck --

Yep, you are absolutely correct -- my thought process is that with an error in RAM execution, we can simply reset / reload from the protected memory store. Depending on a bootloader in flash would be fine aside from the possibility of eating a particle strike / corruption event that roasts the bootloader and renders the entire part useless. If the 'bootloader' was in silicon, then a simple reset would have it come up and reload contents from the external FRAM device.

I will look into those papers you mentioned -- thanks!

Hello Krunal,

Did my post sufficiently answer your question? If so, please use the green verify button to indicate so that we may close the thread.

Hi Chuck --

Whoops -- yes, it did. Will mark it accepted -- thank you again for your help!

KD