We also try to make our debug probes, in which we obviously put a lot of engineering efforts, They are under “Friendly license”, basically saying that anyone can use the full functionality free of charge as long as long as it is not done to develop a commercial product. This applies to software like Systemview, Embedded Studio etc.: Our strategy is to be fair and make money with professional users. Business is doing OK, I can not complain. We need to sell our products, which we do. Yes, we use our own software “emSecure” here, which uses RSA-2048Īs a company, we have bills to pay and need to stay profitable. > There is no way to calculate mathematically the digital signature without the private key which only SEGGER has. > of your microcontroller using 65537 as the public key and a 256 byte modulus which is stored in the The signature is derived from the hardware ID Latest generation J-Link are a lot more capable and faster than older ones.Īnd on the software protection side, NZSmartie is correct: What we do sell new J-Link is of course a process of continuous improvement. We analyze as much as possible all faults and where possible and necessary learn from things and improve the hardware. The target side protection is as robust as possible, USB side protection (using regulators that can take substantial voltage spikes) etc. We actually do the opposite and try to make them as robust as possible. So to be clear: We do *not* purposely limit the life time of our products. On the current models (V10/V11), to the best of my knowledge this has not happened at all, and we are using the LPC4322 for about 5 years now. Some are better in this respect than others. Why the CPU lost its memory we never figured out, but I think this is a problem on many MCUs. ![]() From what we have seen, it seem like only a part of the flash content has been lost, as the debug interface was still functional and showed that a part of the program must still have been there. Unfortunately, this is not easy to diagnose, as the Read-out protection is enabled, and we also can not read back the firmware. The units are fine if they get re-flashed. We have had a couple of units come back with this type of problem, where the firmware On the J-Link V9, which we have only produced for a short period of time, as it was not dual core and most of all did not have a High-speed USB interface, we are aware of this type of problem. ![]() They can be used as long as they live, and we do nothing to shorten the life span. ![]() We do not purposely “brick” our own products. That is of course if you use our boot loader and not some hacked replacement boot loader. Firmware update can continue the next time. Our Firmware update is in fact “bullet proof”, in a sense that were a firmware update gets interrupted, LPC4322 (M4/M0) for J-Link Base and Plus and a FPGA (Zynq) with built-in Cortex-A9 for high end models (J-Link ULTRA+ / PRO). So newer J-Links do not use an STM32F7 CPU. Posted in Microcontrollers, Tool Hacks Tagged in-circuit debugger, j-link, segger, unbrick Post navigation This was not the end of the story, however, as after this the SEGGER software was unable to update the firmware on the device, due to a missing bootloader that was not part of the firmware image.ĭigging further into this, found out a whole host of fascinating details about not only these SEGGER J-Link devices, but also the many clones that are out there, as well as the interesting ways that SEGGER makes people buy new versions of their debug probes. ![]() This led to the interesting discovery that apparently the MCU’s Flash ROM had seemingly lost the firmware data.įortunately was able to flash back a version of the firmware which was available on the internet, allowing the J-Link device to work again. The Tag-Connect style JTAG header on the PCB appeared to be a good second stop, requiring only a bit of work to reverse-engineer the exact pinout and hook up an ST-Link V2 in-circuit debugger to talk with the STM32F205RC MCU on the PCB. This led to take the device apart to figure out what was wrong with it.Īfter checking voltages on the PCB, nothing obvious seemed wrong. This was awkward not only because in-circuit debuggers are vital pieces of equipment in embedded firmware development, but also because they’re not that cheap. Last year found themselves in the situation where a SEGGER J-link debug probe suddenly just stopped working.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |