Bootsel pin usage

  • I'm looking for the BOOTSEL pin usage on the ArmStone A9 card, could you kindly advice about it?
    Sorry i checked manuals on website but cannot find any detailed explanation...


    Regards
    Miroglio Paolo

  • The BOOTSEL pin allows to set a different boot device if for some reason NBoot is damaged and the board can not boot from NAND flash anymore. Then we can re-install NBoot here at F&S. But this requires some additional tools, therefore BOOTSEL is not meant for the end user. Just leave it unconnected.


    Your F&S Support Team

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Thank you.
    In the meanwhile i ask for other questions we have:
    -So when we will receive board from you nboot is already present and fetching to nand flash.
    How to perform u-boot loading from this board? I tried to use MFGtool and USB OTG connector but it seems but no USB peripheral is detected on Windows, even if unknown!


    -on the armStoneA9_Hardware_eng document there are mismatching informations:
    on chapter 4.10.3 regarding TTL COM port pins are on 12 and 14, while on the chapter 4.10 is on 13 and 15, which is the correct one?


    -on the same pdf in the chapter 4.10 is specified a VCFL_ON pin on position 34, which is the function?


    Thank you again for support,
    Miroglio Paolo

  • Quote from "leitmotiv"

    -So when we will receive board from you nboot is already present and fetching to nand flash.


    Yes. NBoot is always present on the board.


    Quote

    How to perform u-boot loading from this board? I tried to use MFGtool and USB OTG connector but it seems but no USB peripheral is detected on Windows, even if unknown!


    U-Boot is installed via NBoot. MFGTool is not required for the end user. If you are an early customer for our i.MX6 boards, you may have had a board version where NBoot was not yet available, so you may have been required to use MFGTool at this early stage. But with the introduction of NBoot, MFGTool should not be necessary anymore.


    There are two ways of installing U-Boot in NBoot:


    Press 'd' and download the U-Boot image via serial port. This requires a terminal program that is capable of sending a binary file 1:1 to the board, without any protocol like x-modem or kermit. Just sending the pure 8-bit binary data. On Windows PCs we have DCUTerm available for this.


    Or simply connect the board with a simple USB cable to your PC. Use the USB device-connector on the board side. Then you need the F&S NetDCUUSBLoader program on the PC and there you can send the U-Boot binary to the board. Unfortunately this tool is also only available for Windows. The current NBoot for i.MX6 does not detect the USB download automatically, so you have to press 'u' to start the USB download. This will most probably change in the future and the USB download will be detected automatically.


    When U-Boot is downloaded, store it to flash by pressing 'f'. Then you can restart the board.


    Remark: NBoot on i.MX6 is not yet finished. There will be more enhancements in the future. For example there will be a way to also download U-Boot from the on-board SD card slot. And we will try to get the i.MX6 version more in sync with the NBoot versions on our other architectures.


    Quote

    -on the armStoneA9_Hardware_eng document there are mismatching informations:
    on chapter 4.10.3 regarding TTL COM port pins are on 12 and 14, while on the chapter 4.10 is on 13 and 15, which is the correct one?


    Yes you are right, this is mismatching. Correct is 13 and 15. Thanks for pointing this out.


    Quote

    -on the same pdf in the chapter 4.10 is specified a VCFL_ON pin on position 34, which is the function?


    VCFL_ON can be used as backlight control for the LCD backlight. It is the same signal that is also available on pin 2 of the backlight connector (chapter 4.7) and on pin 24 of the LVDS connector (chapter 4.6.1).


    Your F&S Support Team

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • I have more questions on the go, if you have updated documentation please let me know.
    I explain my situation:
    We like the board, it fits to our needs but we are using an evaluation one given from a distributor.
    -USB-OTG is not working at all, even if using a software or not, at least on Windows device should appear, i checked wirings and so on.
    -Board has hand-made wirings instead of a component on the centre of the board, it is normal? (Considering that is an evaluation board).
    -We would like to know when you will be at full production, so we know how to handle orders.
    -We also saw that on page 14 "Thermal design power" is 4A. What does it mean? 4A on 5Volt input, 4A on the internal 3.3V or on other auxiliary voltage?It seems not 4A on 5V of main supply, it seems strange that the whole board can drain 20W.


    Best Regards
    Miroglio Paolo
    Bianco S.p.A.

  • -Board has hand-made wirings instead of a component on the centre of the board, it is normal? (Considering that is an evaluation board).
    It's a beta sample. Board needs a redesign. It's almost working with this patches.


    -We would like to know when you will be at full production, so we know how to handle orders.
    Please ask your sales partner for production and delivery times.


    -We also saw that on page 14 "Thermal design power" is 4A. What does it mean? 4A on 5Volt input, 4A on the internal 3.3V or on other auxiliary voltage?It seems not 4A on 5V of main supply, it seems strange that the whole board can drain 20W.
    This value is preliminary (please observe the whole manual is preliminary). We recommend to have a powerful power supply for the board; from our experience this is too small very often on customer projects. We already correct this value on the new manual release.


    best regards

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Quote from "leitmotiv"

    -USB-OTG is not working at all, even if using a software or not, at least on Windows device should appear, i checked wirings and so on.


    In the current kernel that we provide for armStoneA9, there are a few USB gadgets (= device functions) included: Audio, Ethernet, File-backed Storage, Serial. However these functions are provided as kernel modules, so you have to load the kernel module(s) first to provide the appropriate gadget. For example to add a mass storage device that forwards the data from the SD card, you have to say


    Code
    1. modprobe g_file_storage file=/dev/mmcblk0


    Maybe you also have to give some serial number for this device.


    Your F&S Support Team

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Thank you for the answers, i'm posting other questions to italian Rutronik.
    Card id near the barcode is 074E7A


    You are talking about the linux kernel on arm right? For USB OTG i mean the mini USB connector, problem is on the Windows side. Is there a module for handling the OTG from arm kernel or i understood wrong?

  • The port is usually used as USB device port. That means it can be connected to a PC with a standard Mini-USB cable. Then the PC is the USB host and the armStoneA9 is the USB device, like a mouse or a USB stick. And depending on which function you activate, the board will behave as a different USB device. When you are using my example, then the armStoneA9 will behave like a Mass Storage Device. And then your PC should behave in a similar way as if you plug in a USB stick or a USB hard disk. I.e. it will provide an additional disk drive and you can access the files on this disk drive from your windows explorer. This does not require any drivers on the PC. However if you activate the audio feature or the serial feature on the armStoneA9 by loading another kernel module, then the PC side may need some special driver to talk to and use this function.


    What do you want to achieve? If you are evaluating this port, then one should assume that you have some special intention for a usage, haven't you?

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • Thank you for the answer, i executed:


    bash-2.05b# modprobe g_file_storage file=/dev/mmcblk0p1
    g_file_storage gadget: controller 'fsl-usb2-udc' not recognized
    g_file_storage gadget: No serial-number string provided!
    g_file_storage gadget: File-backed Storage Gadget, version: 1 September 2010
    g_file_storage gadget: Number of LUNs=1
    g_file_storage gadget-lun0: ro=0, nofua=0, file: /dev/mmcblk0p1
    Suspend udc for OTG auto detect
    fsl-usb2-udc: bind to driver g_file_storage


    Windows now says USB peripheral not recognized, at the "usb hub" level, i suppose that for a mass media no special driver is required or am i wrong?


    Best Regards
    Miroglio Paolo

  • Quote from "leitmotiv"

    modprobe g_file_storage file=/dev/mmcblk0p1


    That's wrong. You have to give the whole SD card device, not just partition 1. Use /dev/mmcblk0 instead of /dev/mmcblk0p1 like in my example. If the device has more than one partition, each partition will show up as a separate drive under windows.

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.

  • thank you very much, now is loading the drives!
    Only problem pending is that it continously restart peripheral on windows, and the driver says:
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1
    g_file_storage gadget: high speed config #1


    effect is like that i disconnect and reconnect the usb cable continously...

  • In the last two days we have tested the USB device function of the armStoneA9 again, very extensively, under Linux as well as under WinCE. We did not have any restarts. We now assume that it may be the USB connection to your PC.


    • Try to use the USB cable provided with the starterkit (standard cable USB-A to USB-B mini, no adapters).
    • Try to use a different USB port on your PC, e.g. one of the backside instead of the front side.
    • Try to add a USB hub in between.
    • Probably try a different PC.


    If this does not help, you probably should send us the board again and we'll check it. Please obtain a RMA number before sending the board (see here)


    Your F&S Support Team

    F&S Elektronik Systeme GmbH
    As this is an international forum, please try to post in English.
    Da dies ein internationales Forum ist, bitten wir darum, Beiträge möglichst in Englisch zu verfassen.