i.MX25 PDK Board Flashing NAND

[#1]

ATK (Advanced Toolkit)

ATK is a Windows tool for programming the flash memory of i.MX boards. It can be downloaded here.

Using ATK

This section will describe the procedure to erase the flash memory and program the bootloader.

1. Assemble the PDK using the CPU board, the Personality board, and the Debug board.

2. Connect a USB cable between the PC and the i.MX25 PDK Personality board.

3. Some hardware configurations (switches) must be set for booting from UART/USB:

  On the debug board:

  Switch SW5 -> Off

  Switch SW6 -> Off

  Switch SW7 -> Off

  Switch SW8 -> Off

  Switch SW9 -> On

  Switch SW10 -> On

  On the personality board:

  Switch SW21 -> 11000000

  Switch SW22 -> 00000000

{{Note|On SW5 thourgh SW10, "1" means the keys selected towards the edge of the board.}

4. Run ATK (1.6 or above) going to Start -> Programs -> AdvancedToolKit -> AdvancedToolKit

  Set the options:

  i.MX CPU -> i.MX25_TO1.1

  Device memory -> DDR2;

  Custom Initial File -> (keep it unmarked)

  Communication Channel -> USB

5. Power up the i.MX25 PDK

6. Click on "Next"

7. Click on Flash Tools to erase, program or dump the the flash memory and click GO.

NAND Flash Erasing

1. Configure the Dip Switch of Personality Board:

Switch	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
SW1	OFF	OFF	OFF	OFF	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
SW2	ON	OFF	OFF	ON	ON	OFF	OFF	OFF

2. Choose NAND model K9LAG08U8M

3. Continue the steps

Remember to select the checkbutton BBT (Back Block Table)

Commands to flash kernel and rootfs

fis init -f

load -r -b 0x100000 zImage -h <host IP address>

fis create -f 0x300000 kernel

load -r -b 0x100000 rootfs.jffs2 -h <host IP address>

fis create -f 0x800000 root

fis load kernel

exec -c "noinitrd console=ttymxc0 115200 root=/dev/mtdblock2 rw ip=dhcp rootfstype=jffs2"

Command to create rootfs.jffs2

mkfs.jffs2 -r rootfs -e 0x80000 -s 0x1000 -n -o rootfs.jffs2

[cheshire]

The images are not loading for me.

Are there any documents you can point me to for more infomration?

[#3]

Sorry, Cheshire.  When we migrated the content from an earlier wiki site, some of the images were lost (permanently).  Rather than doing away with this page entirely, we posted it hoping that it is of some help without the images.

Regards,

Grant

[cheshire]

Thanks for modifying the post, but I am looking for one more detail to get Redboot onto the board.

  I believe I have a pre-compiled redboot image inside the provided Linux SDK: L2.6.31_09.12.00_SDK_SOURCE

I don't know the memory address to program it to using ATK. 

[Yuri]

According to "pdk2009_12_imx25_Linux_UG.pdf" redboot.bin should be located at zero address of NAND
(BBT is not checked), zImage - from 0x0030_0000 (BBT is checked)

[cheshire]

Thanks!  I had downloaded the windows documentation bundle, but failed to download the linux documentation bundle!  I downloaded everything I thought I needed on the downloads page, but didn't get everything I needed from the documentation page for the imx25pdk.  Thanks for your help.

[#7]

Yuri, thanks for sharing the information!

Good luck, Cheshire.

[zhezhang]

Thank you for the sharing, when I flash or erase the NAND flash using ATK, the drop-down menu only show NAND,not "NAND model K9LAG08U8M",

The nand flash part on my CPU board is K9LBG08U0D, with different page size, does it mean that the ATK tool not support the flash K9LBG08U0D?

[Yuri]

There are two options for i.MX25 PDK :

- with Samsung K9LBG08U0D-PCB0, 4k page size ;

- with Samsung K9LAG08U0M-PCB0, 2k page size.

Both are supported by the ATK ; please double check if BBT
and BI Swap of the ATK is set correctly.