topic Re: HEX files and customized bootloader in Kinetis Design Studio

HEX files and customized bootloader

bouhady — Mon, 30 May 2016 14:02:36 GMT

I'm working with K64 and KDS .

since there is no USB Host Bootloader for this device I'm tring to implement my own Bootloader.

Based on a "BM USB Host" example for this device (USB Host Project with KSDK 1.3 and Processor Expert ) I create a tool which read and parse .hex file in order to program it automatically.

I edited the original linker file for the code to push adresses by 0x020000 so all the data should be writen in the rest of the memory.

When I'm asking the KDS complier to create in addition to the elf file a HEX file there is just one critical problem : somewhere in the middle of the HEX file one of the packets size takes just 4/8 bytes and then the addresses of the rest of the file now is starting from a XXX8 and XXXC address which is not aligned anymore.

tring to program this packets on the flash returns with FTFx_ERR_SIZE (0x2000) error for the first 4 Byte packet and with FTFx_ERR_ACCERR (0x0020) error for the rest packets probably since the data is not 16 byte aligned anymore.

What is the solution for this situation? is there a simple way to enforce the compiler to create a 16 bytes aligned HEX file or i should invest more time with better robust algorithm for handeling the non-align data?

Re: HEX files and customized bootloader

Alice_Yang — Tue, 31 May 2016 07:05:56 GMT

Hello Yani,

When you erase ,it return the FTFx_ERR_SIZE , it is not the reason of the HEX file .

What about the part number of your chip ? What about the size of one sector ?

And when you erase , the least size is one sector , please check. You can show how do

you call the function of "FlashEraseSector()" .

Hope it helps

Alice

Re: HEX files and customized bootloader

TICS_Fiona — Tue, 31 May 2016 07:46:42 GMT

Hello Yaniv

I have no knowledge with your bootloader, so I cannot tell exactly why it returns ERR_SIZE and ERR_ACCERR error. Below is only a tip for your hex data align question.

The HEX file is not generated by compiler, it is created by tool “arm-none-eabi-objcopy.exe” from ELF file, this tool locates at:

C:\Freescale\CW MCU v10.6.4\Cross_Tools\arm-none-eabi-gcc-4_7_3\bin

For its options, please run “arm-none-eabi-objcopy.exe -help” to get the descriptions. Or refer to this link:

https://manned.org/arm-none-eabi-objcopy

Unfortunately This tool does not support align Hex data, I found a workaround, that is to first generate S-record file as below (this tool supports to align S-record data):

Then run “arm-none-eabi-objcopy.exe” to convert S-record data into hex, like below:

arm-none-eabi-objcopy.exe -I srec -O ihex sfs.srec fixed_result.hex

This is the comparison of HEX file generated in KDS IDE, and the one converted from S-record file.

Best Regards

Fiona Kuang

TIC - Technical Information Center

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Re: HEX files and customized bootloader

bobpaddock — Tue, 31 May 2016 12:26:16 GMT

You can use http://srecord.sf.net to filter/transform .HEX files or convert between S19 and HEX.