BQ28Z610: BQ28Z610 does not keep firmware

Hello Damiano,

How many boards or ICs are not working compared to working you have tested with each lot? If you perform and ABA swap does the issue follow the gauge?

Once you flash the firmware to the gauge, it works okay, until it looses power, then it goes back to the same unresponsive state?

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller

Hi Wyatt, 

I had 3 boards with the problem, all these boards have a BQ28Z610 of the not working lot. I have replaced the IC with one of the working lot, and the board starts to work correctly. 

Yes, after flashing the firmware and loosing power, the BQ28Z610 returns in the unresponsive state.

Kind,

Hello Damiano,

Can you confirm no damage happened to the gauges during the production process and they are all linked with that lot? I'm looking into what we can do to resolve this if it's linked with this lot.

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller

Yes, I think that the production process had no effects on the gauges. We worked with the same PCB supplier more than once and we never have problems. Anyway the device had no external damage. I think the problem is due to this lot.

kind,

HI Wyatt;

We have some news. We have seen that the devices have the firmware version 11. If we use this version, seems that all work properly, but if we try to update to version 17 of firmware, we see the problems list above. Is there any method to overcome the problem?

kind,

Hello Wyatt,

from the export file of Data Memory(.csv file):

* Device Number 2610
* Firmware Version 0.11
* Build Number 13

the hardware is BQ26Z610 (NOT R1)

kind,

Hello Damiano,

Let me look into this more and get back to you tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller

Hello Damiano,

Can you confirm both lots are non R1? If you download the firmware from the product page that is un-edited it still behaves this way?

If any of the memory mapping during srec or flash stream programming was changed it may cause this. Can you confirm the gauge is not in ROM mode as well?

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller

Hello Wyatt, 

- yes, both the lots are NON R1.
- If I burn the firmware downloaded from the product page the device doesn't work. As explained above, the devices with firmware 17 downloaded doesn't reply to any commands (only program command) 

- I don't understand this :
"If any of the memory mapping during srec or flash stream programming was changed it may cause this."
during the downloading I don't do any change of registers (just wait to download is finished).

- how can I verify this? : "Can you confirm the gauge is not in ROM mode as well?" . Is there any I2C command to read this information? could you specify which is? 

Hello Wyatt,

Yes the device is in ROM mode at the start.
Thanks to this thread:

e2e.ti.com/.../bq28z610---writing-to-flash

we have understood the problem. We are using an old hardware version (9002A1), following the instructions of the link above (connect as BQ40Z50, using SMBus and reading 0x0D) we saw that our hardware version is the old(0x9100), while on the devices that run correctly we saw 0x9101 (9002A2).

Is there any method to understand the hardware version from the lot number ID?
Could we use an older firmware version for all hardware version?

kind,

Hello Damiano,

I would recommend using the corresponding firmware for the hardware, but you should be able to use older firmware in newer hardware.

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller

Hello Wyatt,

I have two requests

- could you share here v16 firmware version?
- Is there any method to identify the hardware version from the lot number ID?

thanks,

Thank you Wyatt,

Seems that our devices works fine with firmware version 16.
- The firmware version 16 could be used for mass production? (Any critacal bugs?)
- Could you share here the change log between 16 and 17 firmware version?

thanks,

Hello Wyatt,

Can we use firmware 16 for mass production or Texas Instruments advice against the use of firmware 16?

thank you

Hello Damiano,

I can't advise to use version 16 firmware because with each update we fix bugs and add features. I always recommend to use the most updated firmware. The newest firmware for the BQ28Z610 should run on any BQ28Z610, I'm not sure why there is an issue - unless somehow the R1 firmware got into the mix or some data is corrupted.

Sincerely,

Wyatt Keller