[U-Boot] OT Flashing high volume of devices

[Peter Barada]

On 11/18/2010 03:39 PM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> Dear Hamilton Vera,
>
> In message<AANLkTim-w-ijiNpPMsmUM++9MwWsxbOntOdPb5HH6D0Z at mail.gmail.com>  you wrote:
>    
>> Hi folks this is probably out off topic, we are happily using uboot in
>> our devices but I am wondering about the procedures to flash/deploy
>> uboot (or any bootloader) in a high scale production environment.
>>      
> What sort of boot device are you using?  NOR flash? NAND flash?
>
> For high volumes, you can get pre-programmed flash chips, so you have
> a running system when the boards come from assembly.
>    
Indeed, pre-programing flash used in the board assembly is the way to 
go.  Most manufacturers make the initial image a self-test program that 
initially exercise all I/O (the board is initially powered up attached 
to a test/burn-in fixture), and if the test succeeds, then re-burns the 
flash with the production image(u-boot/Linux/rootfs or otherwise) that 
is part of the test-image.  If the test fails, then the board is 
rejected and reworked to diagnose/fix found issues (cold-solder, lifted 
pins, etc).

Speed of testing/initial burn-in can be increased by running more than 
one fixture in parallel.

-- 
Peter Barada
peterb at logicpd.com