[U-Boot-Users] Intel StrataFlash 28F128J3 vs. 28F256K3

[U-Boot-Users] Intel StrataFlash 28F128J3 vs. 28F256K3

[Craig A. Vanderborgh]

Hello,

I am bringing up u-boot on a new revision of our board and I am having a 
problem with flash.  Both boards have share *exactly* the same 
schematic, with just one difference.  The newer board has 2 Intel 
28F256K3 flash chips in a single bank versus 2 Intel 28F128J3 flash 
chips in a single bank on the older board.

I am inexperienced with this flash stuff, so bear with me.  What I am 
seeing is very strange.  The board comes up, and everything works except 
flash.  u-boot comes up, serial works fine, DRAM works fine.  Flash does 
not work right.  Here is what I am seeing.

1. Using JTAG, I can program the 1st sector of flash successfully.  This 
works and I am using this mechanism to boot the board.
2. Using JTAG or u-boot flash commands, erasing appears to work for all 
sectors > sector 0.  Programming does NOT work.  The low-order bits (for 
bytes 1&2) are programmed correctly.  The high-order bits (for bytes 
3&4) are LOST, and thus every 32-bit word contains "ff" as the 
high-order bytes after programming.

I have made ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that all my PXA register settings are 
correct.  The same flash code (within u-boot) works correctly on the 
older board (with the J3's).  I am very stuck - and I would appreciate 
some help.  I have spent a vast amount of time on this problem and I 
would dearly love any bone that might be tossed from the U-Boot gurus.

Thansk in advance,
craig vanderborgh
voxware incorporated

[U-Boot-Users] Intel StrataFlash 28F128J3 vs. 28F256K3

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <41C7C7CC.2040801@voxware.com> you wrote:
> 
> 1. Using JTAG, I can program the 1st sector of flash successfully.  This 
> works and I am using this mechanism to boot the board.
> 2. Using JTAG or u-boot flash commands, erasing appears to work for all 
> sectors > sector 0.  Programming does NOT work.  The low-order bits (for 

If programming does not work using JTAG, then your JTAG  debugger  is
misconfigured.

If programming does not work in U-Boot, then the U-Boot flash  driver
is misconfigured.

Or your hardware is broken.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way  is  to
make  it  so  simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the
other is to make it so complicated that there are  no  obvious  defi-
ciencies.                             - Charles Anthony Richard Hoare

[U-Boot-Users] Intel StrataFlash 28F128J3 vs. 28F256K3

[Robert Whaley]

Hi Craig,

Sounds like you may have some other issues too, but one frustrating 
difference between the K and the J parts is that the K parts lock all 
the blocks on power up reset (compare sections 13 of the respective K 
and J data sheets).  So, to erase or write a block, the block needs to 
be unlocked first (I'm talking about the locks in the flash part, not 
the U-boot software locks).

Putting something like this before erases and writes resolves this issue.

#ifdef CFG_UNLOCK_BEFORE_ERASE
	flash_write_cmd (info, sect, 0, FLASH_CMD_CLEAR_STATUS);
	flash_write_cmd (info, sect, 0, FLASH_CMD_PROTECT);
	flash_write_cmd (info, sect, 0, FLASH_CMD_PROTECT_CLEAR);
#endif

Hope this helps.

Robert

Craig A. Vanderborgh wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am bringing up u-boot on a new revision of our board and I am having a 
> problem with flash.  Both boards have share *exactly* the same 
> schematic, with just one difference.  The newer board has 2 Intel 
> 28F256K3 flash chips in a single bank versus 2 Intel 28F128J3 flash 
> chips in a single bank on the older board.
> 
> I am inexperienced with this flash stuff, so bear with me.  What I am 
> seeing is very strange.  The board comes up, and everything works except 
> flash.  u-boot comes up, serial works fine, DRAM works fine.  Flash does 
> not work right.  Here is what I am seeing.
> 
> 1. Using JTAG, I can program the 1st sector of flash successfully.  This 
> works and I am using this mechanism to boot the board.
> 2. Using JTAG or u-boot flash commands, erasing appears to work for all 
> sectors > sector 0.  Programming does NOT work.  The low-order bits (for 
> bytes 1&2) are programmed correctly.  The high-order bits (for bytes 
> 3&4) are LOST, and thus every 32-bit word contains "ff" as the 
> high-order bytes after programming.
> 
> I have made ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that all my PXA register settings are 
> correct.  The same flash code (within u-boot) works correctly on the 
> older board (with the J3's).  I am very stuck - and I would appreciate 
> some help.  I have spent a vast amount of time on this problem and I 
> would dearly love any bone that might be tossed from the U-Boot gurus.
> 
> Thansk in advance,
> craig vanderborgh
> voxware incorporated
> 
> 
> 
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