RT117x: Flash programming using Dual SPI

[SecularC]

Hello, 

I would like to test booting and running code from QSPI flash in dual I/O mode on the MIMXRT1170-EVK board. I want to depopulate R392 and R385 (IO2/IO3 of U23) and populate R171 and R176 to pull those lines to FLASH_VCC. This means I will only have IO0 and IO1. IO2 will be used as WP# and IO3 will be used as HOLD#/RESET#. I will test XIP with an example project evkmimxrt1170_iled_blinky_cm7.

My questions are:

Do the available flash drivers in MCUXpresso program the flash using 1 I/O or 4 I/O? If 4 I/O, is there a script that does not require all four I/O lines to be used?

Can the serial downloader program the flash without using all 4 I/O lines?

What needs to be changed in the XIP files to use dual I/O for flash read/write?

[Omar_Anguiano · Accepted solution]

You need to modify some parameters in the flexspi_nor_config file as well as the Lookup-Table(LUT). This application notes puts an example on Winbond W25Q32 on how to configure it on Quad, Dual and Single(5.6.3). How to Enable Debugging for FLEXSPI NOR Flash

The same SFDP flash driver on MCUXpresso can be used for this. 

BR,
Omar

[SecularC]

Thanks for the reply.

I modified the evkmimxrt1170_flexspi_nor_config.c file to use two pads, lower the clock speed to 100MHz, and use 4 dummy cycles. The LUT was also modified to use two pads and the fast read command for dual I/O instead of quad I/O. This worked when loading the program via the serial downloader, but did not work with the existing SFDP flash driver.

I did have to modify the flash driver to modify the flash configuration block that begins at 0x30000400 to use the same configuration I have in the modified evkmimxrt1170_flexspi_nor_config.c. This got the flash driver to work to flash the program with only two I/O pins.