topic Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ?? in ColdFire/68K Microcontrollers and Processors

How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

krishnan — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:50:06 GMT

Hi

Kindly excuse my ignorance. am a newbie to the ColdFire family.. Something that i am concerned about that i need a clarification on before i can decide to procure a MCF5282 Evaluation board....

My situation is this :

I'm looking at procuring a ColdFire Evaluation Board for MCF5282. I intended to use Eclipse IDE with the GNU toolchain from codesourcery.com

I therefore now have options for a compiler, Simulator and a Debugger.

Now, for example i want to test a simple UART routine or some other serial Communication routine, how will i load the "hex" file generated by my compiler into the target device ??

If i were working on ARM, i would have simply used a utility called Flash Magic, which is a flash programming utility, available for free. The only hardware interface this requires is a simple serial cable.

Can i similarly write a routine, & load my hex onto the memory of my ColdFire controller, using a simple, freely available software, without having to purchase a BDM/programmer cable from PE-Micro or anyone else??

Hope this is clear.

regards

techie.

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

David_Pang — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:01:24 GMT

Hi krishnan ,

A BDM cable is required to download your program to target board.
There are some programs, such as CF flasher, can use to burn flash through BDM interface.
And you can also use Codewarrior to compile and load your program to run on SDRAM.
If you don't want to buy a BDM cable, you can refer to the on-top topic:
* TBLCF open source debugging cable
and make a cable for your own.

David

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

krishnan — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:17:31 GMT

hello David,

thanks for that. Just adding to what you have written, Will buying a Evaluation kit, that comes with a pre-loaded bootloader or some kind of a RTOS save me the trouble of buying a BDM cable ?? As I can then load my programs through say ethernet or serial port???

regards

krish

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

David_Pang — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 12:54:23 GMT

Hi Krish,

If your evb board has a pre-load bootloader, you can also use it to load your application.
When design your own boards, you need to write some code to check if your hw functions correctly.
It is helpful if you have a BDM cable.

David

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

krishnan — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:20:44 GMT

Hello David,

So, the cheapest i can get is a Parallel Port BDM Cable for $199, i suppose frmo P&E???

Are there any other cheaper options available, besides the TBLCF Project ofcourse??

regards

krish

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

David_Pang — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:12:31 GMT

Hi Krish,

I don't know the price of a BDM header. But I think the Parallel Port BDM Cable is the cheapest one.
Maybe you can do a google search to find if there are other vendors.

Regards,
David

Re: How is a program loaded into the Flash of a coldfire MCU ??

krishnan — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 18:15:44 GMT

Thanks for your help David

regards

Krishnan