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TM4C123BH6PGE: Older Tivaware version running on rev 7 devices

Part Number: TM4C123BH6PGE

What are the risks of running older versions of Tivaware (as old as the first) on a revision 7 device such as TM4C123BH6PGEI7R.

Thank you!

  • Hello Lenio,

    The risk would be that multiple issues identified in TivaWare and since resolved via updates would still be present, and possibly any errata items which were discovered since that TivaWare was released would not be addressed.

    On the errata side, you can check the TM4C123x errata document's revision history to see the additions made and the dates from original document release to errata update and compare that to the TivaWare version release date: http://www.ti.com/lit/er/spmz849f/spmz849f.pdf

    In general we strongly recommend using the latest TivaWare, and we also won't be able to support such an old version either.

  • We are aware of the errata issues and have read the release notes of Tivaware. The question is if an application in the field fails to update the firmware and it has to revert to an older version, will the device operate satisfactorily (given all the errata issues you have already mentioned).
  • I'm confused by your expectations here. Wouldn't you expect that if the application ran the same software as it did before it would behave the same way and be subject to the same errata that it was previously?

    Robert
  • Thanks for the question, I should have been more clear. We are migrating from revision 6 running on an older version of Tivaware, into revision 7, running with the latest Tivaware. The concern is for those cases in which the software update fails, will revision 7 operate without catastrophic results when running on an older version of Tivaware.
  • I'm still confused, if you have updated to the newer TIVAWare then presumably it would be the first load on new hardware. How could it revert back to software that had never been installed. If you are loading the older revision as the first load, why? Would it not make more sense to load the updated version by default?

    Robert
  • The software resides on a separate board. Even though the board in which the TM4C device resides is fresh and loaded with the latest and greatest, there is a chance a future update may fail and the host control board will load a previous image.

    Setting the particular aspects of the application aside, the fundamental question is whether anyone has experience with testing an older Tivaware version on a rev 7 device.
  • Hello Lenio,

    I understand the situation. Again, review of the device errata document would be key. One important point I want to bring up would be that MEM#07, MEM#10, and MEM#11 were items added for Rev 7 that aren't present in Rev 6. They need to evaluate if any of those would impact their Rev 7 devices. If so, they must make sure they have the latest TivaWare and that their application accounts for these errata items (such as using EEPROMInit from the flash of TivaWare 2.1 or newer and NOT the ROM calls).
  • Lenio Cacula said:
    The software resides on a separate board. Even though the board in which the TM4C device resides is fresh and loaded with the latest and greatest, there is a chance a future update may fail and the host control board will load a previous image.

    OK, that still sounds like a revision control problem with the other board. It should be able to make it's own compatibility checks.

    Lenio Cacula said:
    Setting the particular aspects of the application aside, the fundamental question is whether anyone has experience with testing an older Tivaware version on a rev 7 device.

    The original answer was quite complete in that regard. The errata unaddressed in the older version will remain unaddressed. The question is, do the errata affect you and how badly? It's your application, I think that only you can answer.

    Robert

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