IWR6843AOP: UART mirroring response upon ping command test

Hi Neil,

Being that you have a custom board, there are many of reasons Uniflash may be failing to communicate with your device over UART, and it is hard for us to say without further information.

So are you seeing the COM ports in your device manager? Is your device properly in flashing mode? On our EVMs, we have the SOP switches which allow someone to switch between flashing and functional mode, but only you can answer that question for your custom board.  

Are you successfully flashing and running a demo program? What is meant by flash test?

I will also point you to several relevant threads to see if they address your issue. Please check them out and see if they lend any insight:

• https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1132299/iwr6843aop-uart-flash-programming-no-answer-to-break-command
• https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1035317/iwr6843aop-can-not-use-external-xds110-flash-iwr6843aop-with-uart
• https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1034924/iwr6843aop-cannot-flash-custom-board-of-iwr6843aop-from-uart

Regards,

Luke

Hello Luke,

Thank you for your reply and thanks for the links.

Yes I can see both Enhanced and Standard COM ports in device manager. Our hardware enginner has checked for the voltage levels on SOP's and the device is in flashing mode.

The problem is, I cannot flash any firmware image using UNIFLASH, so I couldn't flash the demo program.

I could connect our custom board to the debugger XDS110 and could flash the program in RAM and  run the application in CCS on ARM processor.

I used the flash test program from SDK drivers to test the FLASH memory using debugger as explained above.

Please let me know if you need and other information.

Thanks and regards,

Neil

Okay, thanks for providing me for information. Give me some time to look further into this for you.

Regards,

Luke

Hi Neil,

Can you share with us your schematic? We need more hardware context in order to provide support here.

Also, we need to ensure that your device is in flashing boot mode. If it is not, then you will not get an ACK from the UART. Please read the status of the SOP register, which will tell us if the device is in flashing mode or not. Please refer to these for guidance:

1. https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/849239/iwr1443-what-is-the-alternative-way-to-put-the-iwr1443-into-flashing-mode/3141453#3141453
2. https://e2e.ti.com/support/sensors-group/sensors/f/sensors-forum/1092566/iwr6843aop-awr6843aop/4067170#4067170
   

Lastly, if you are using an incompatible flash, you may be unable to flash. Please confirm compatibility here: https://www.ti.com/lit/an/sprach9d/sprach9d.pdf

Regards,

Luke

Hello Luke,

Thank you for your reply, and I understand you need a schematic diagram to make further analysis but beacuse of NDA I cannot post schematic diagram.

Is there any way to read SOP status from registers, I tried to look inot register table, but I couldn't find it.

Also by using SBL where you don't need to put the device in flashing mode using SOP's for flahing into FLASH, I could flash image, so FLASH memory compatibility should not be the problem. I could flash the into FLASH using SBL, but its just not possible because of SOP settings. So I think its mostly the problem of SOP setting.

Thanks and Regards,

Neil

Hi Neil,

Yes, to read the SOP register, please refer to the first forum post I linked you. Quoted from there:

SOP mode register: FFFF E268 (Flash mode should read 0x00000005, Functional Mode should read 0x00000001)

Regards,

Luke

Hello Luke,

I am reading at address 0xFFFFE268 which is in register TOPRCM_GEMBOOTSTCEN, and it's 0x00000005, which means the board is in Flash mode. I tried to look at the description of this register but there is no information about SOP mode in this register. Do know in which document of IWR6843 I can find that information about SOP mode register

But thanks for your reply, it helped me know the status of SOP mode. Its seems then SOPs are correct.

Thanks and regards,

Neil

Neil,

    Could you please share the flash part number you are using it in your board? 

Thanks and regards,

CHETHAN KUMAR Y.B.

Hello Chethan,

The QSPI flash we are using is MX25R1635FZNIHO

Thanks and Regards,

Neil

Neil,

    Thanks for providing the flash part number,  This part variant seem to be different from that of EVM (MX25R1635FZUIH0), 

Did you try EVM flash part number or MX25V1635FZNQ, MX25V1635FZNQ03 part used in the non-AOP version of EVMs.  

I understand there could be different footprint, but above symptom seem to suggest there is issue in the flash reading from the boot ROM. 

Thanks and regards,

CHETHAN KUMAR Y.B.

Hello Chethan,

I get what you are suspecting, but then I am using SBL loaded directly into RAM via debugger and then flashing image into FLASH.

Then I could start the application, which means ROM bootloader could then transfer image into RAM. Its just with UniFlash, the custom board doesn't seem to work.

Thanks and Regards,

Neil

Neil,

    There is still some difference between the two approaches i.e. writing into flash through the debugger vis writing through the Uniflash interface. ROM bootloader tries to load the QSPI flash at 80MHz. Hence if there is a issue in the flash or its timing to operate at this frequency with the BOOT ROM during the flashing through Uniflash. Hence request is to check with the flash part same as used on the EVM.  

Thanks and regards,

CHETHAN KUMAR Y.B.