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manual:demos:ek_lm3s6965_crossworks

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ARM-CM3 LM3S Texas Instruments EK-LM3S6965 Crossworks

Development Environment

This demo is targeted towards the Texas Instruments LM3S6965 Ethernet evaluation kit, with 256 kB internal Flash EEPROM and 64 kB internal RAM.

To program the bootloader into the internal flash on the LM3S6965 microcontroller, the In-Circuit Debugger Interface (ICDI), that is available on the board, was used. However, this is not required if you have another means of programming the internal flash.

To compile the demo programs you can use the Rowley Crossworks for ARM development environment.

Building and programming the Bootloader

Before the bootloader can be used, it needs to be built and programmed into the LM3S6965's internal flash memory. The steps in this section only need to be done once.

When using Rowley CrossWorks, simply open the project from within CrossWorks. The project file is located at: \Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Boot\ide\

The bootloader program is now ready to be programmed into the internal flash memory of the LM3S6965. Using your favorite programmer, flash the bootloader using one of the following files, depending on what file type your programmer supports:

  • \Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Boot\bin\openbtl_ek_lm3s6965.elf
  • \Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Boot\bin\openbtl_ek_lm3s6965.srec

Configuring Microboot

The Microboot utility needs to be configured to connect to the correct COM-port and to communication at the correct baudrate:

  • Start Microboot by double-clicking “\Host\MicroBoot.exe”.
  • Click the “Settings”-button and select “OpenBLT using UART” from the dropdown box.
  • Click the “Options”-button to configure the communication parameters.
    • Select the PC's COM-port that the board is connected to.
    • Set the baudrate to 57600 bits/sec.

Once you saved the settings by clicking the “OK”-button twice, you can close Microboot by clicking the “Cancel”-button on the main screen. Microboot is now ready for action!

Building and downloading the Demo Program

When using Rowley CrossWorks, simply open the project from within CrossWorks. The project file is located at: \Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Prog\ide\

The output file is

  • \Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Prog\bin\demoprog_ek_lm3s6965.srec

To download this demoprog_ek_lm3s6965.srec file to the remaining flash memory using the bootloader, start the Microboot program and click the “Browse”-button. Browse to the “\Target\Demo\ARMCM3_LM3S_EK_LM3S6965_Crossworks\Prog\bin\” directory and select the demoprog_ek_lm3s6965.srec file to start the download.

Once the download completed, the newly programmed software will be started by the bootloader. You can verify this by checking that the status LED blinks periodically. Congratulations! That's all there is to using the bootloader.

Firmware updates from SD-card

In addition to the previously described update procedure with Microboot, the bootloader demo is configured for making firmware updates from an SD-card. The procedure is:

  1. Insert the SD-card into your PC and store the firmware file demoprog_ek_lm3s6965.srec on it.
  2. Insert the SD-card into the card holder on the microcontroller board.
  3. Reset the microcontroller to start the firmware update. Once done, the newly programmed firmware is automatically started.

The bootloader demo is configured to output log messages to a serial terminal. This enables you to view the progress of the firmware update with a terminal program such as Putty. The communication settings are the same as those described above in section Configuring Microboot. Additionally, the log messages are written to a file called bootlog.txt on the SD-card, which can optionally be checked for verification purposes.

manual/demos/ek_lm3s6965_crossworks.1369834490.txt.gz · Last modified: 2019/09/24 22:13 (external edit)