[U-Boot-Users] Extremely tiny footprint

[Martin Krause]

Hi Laurent,

Laurent Pinchart wrote on Friday, March 02, 2007 1:35 PM:
> > If programming speed is the only reason for your two-step approach,
> > then IMO this is not reasonable. It would be a waste of your time.
> > Use a faster JTAG programmer instead. Or you could buy the flashes
> > preprogrammed.
> 
> Buying the flashes preprogrammed is not an option given the
> quantities.

OK. But it seems, that the quantities are high enough, that a minute
ore two more programming time does matter :-)

> We already have a BDI2000 which has issues programming the flash
> using the workspace, so it reverts to the slow pure JTAG mode. I
> still have to investigate this directly with Abatron, we haven't
> found a solution so far.

I know workspace problems from our projects. Nearly always a wrong
board (SDRAM) settup was the reason. The Abatron support is very
helpful, though.

> Even using the internal workspace, the BDI2000 is not a very practical
> solution, as it wouldn't be easy to integrate it in our test bench
> architecture. The price is also an issue. This is why I was looking
> for another solution. The alternative I thought of is using a pure
> JTAG programmer (slow) with a tiny ethernet-enabled boot loader. The
> Freescale JTAG commands used to control the processor are not
> documented, so I can't develop a faster JTAG-only alternative. Are
> you aware of any other solution ? 

Possibly it makes sense to program the Flashes before soldering (with
a chip programmer)? This shouldn't be faster as a BDI2000 with a 
working) workspace configuration, but maybe cheaper?

Sorry, don't have other ideas.

Regards,
Martin