Firmware upgrade using Binary file for MPC5748G

[navinars]

Hi,

  I want to implement a firmware upgrade mechanism for the MPC5748G devkit. The user application will receive the firmware via Ethernet and save it to a location in flash. The received firmware will be in binary (.bin) format. Then on a successive reboot, the bootloader will copy the saved bin file in flash and write the application to the start address at which the application should execute. 

Since I am using the binary file and not the srec file, do you foresee any issues with going ahead with the binary file? I will make sure that the bootloader will flash the binary file from secondary bank to primary bank in the correct address. Is there any problem with going forward with this method? The binary file does not have any address information, right? So if I write the binary data exactly as required, it should be all right? 

 stanish‌  uditsalunke    lukaszadrapa‌     martinkovar‌  jiri.kral@nxp.com‌

Navinar

[jiri_kral · Accepted solution]

Hi, 

So - there is couple things that should be think twice before implementation starts. For example the Ethernet - on MPC5748G it is complex stuff consuming quite portion of MCU's resources. Bootloader should be as simple as possible application  - to save resources for application itself. 

Choosing binary file instead .srec is in my opinion not good choice - there is no address information. Don't forget that you have three cores and merging binary files for each core is more complicated than merging s-records.

So - in my opinion the UART or CAN interface for bootloader is way better choice than implementing Ethernet connectivity in bootloader - if you have such choice. 

Jiri 

[navinars]

Hi Jiri,

   Ethernet is the only option as of now. Thanks for the update, I have decided to go forward with SREC file.