D/FW Installation

a step by step guide to install D/FW into eZ430U

Introduction

D/FW is an open source, experimental, and unofficial firmware for eZ430U debug interface. By installing this firmware you can use eZ430U natively on MacOSX, Linux, or other popular Unix systems. Note that once you install this firmware, your eZ430U is no longer usable with TI's official tools, but once you have D/FW equipped 4 wire FET (such as FET430UIF), you should be able to backup/restore the TI's original firmware from another untouched FET.

Please README how to make backup files for eZ430U with D/FW equipped FET.

Overview

First of all, please examine the circuit diagram for eZ430U carefully, and make sure you understand what you are about to do. Figure 4-25 of SLAU292A is the circuit diagram for eZ430U.

eZ430U consists of two programmable devices, one is MSP430F1612 and the other is TUSB3410. TUSB3410 takes care of communication between host computer (Unix system) and MSP430F1612 through USB and the firmware for this device is stored in EEPROM (24LC128, 16KBytes). This EEPROM is programmed by MSP430F1612 at the time when D/FW equipped FET is powered up for the first time. D/FW includes an implementation of USB CDC ACM, this means that eZ430U can be accessed through traditional /dev/tty* interface on most of modern Unix systems. In MacOSX, eZ430U appears as /dev/cu.usbmodem001 for most cases. In Linux, eZ430U appears as /dev/ttyACM0 for most cases. The firmware is programmed to interface /dev/tty and MSP430F1612's USART. Any data written to corresponding /dev/tty goes to RXD of MSP430F1612 and any data read from /dev/tty comes from TXD of MSP430F1612. The host operating system and the firmware takes care of low level USB protocol and TUSB3410 is transparent for host programs and the firmware for MSP430F1612.

MSP430F1612 takes commands from the host programs, and does actual JTAG/SBW manipulation to the target device. Commands are defined in dfw/cmds.c, and usually accessed by host side library, dfw/libdfw.c. All of host side utility programs, (dmwt, bufet and gdbproxy) use libdfw to communicate D/FW equipped FET. This MSP430F1612 can be programmed through TP1...TP7 of the eZ430U circuit board, by 4 wire JTAG programmer such as FET430UIF. dfw/dfw.ez430u.ihex is the D/FW firmware for MSP430F1612 on eZ430U. As mentioned above, the first time eZ430U is powered up, D/FW will write the firmware for TUSB3410. This will take about 10 seconds or so. Be patient. Once EEPROM is programmed successfully, /dev/tty* will appear in your host Unix system.

Preparation

To program MSP430F1612 on eZ430U, you have to make TP1...TP7 available for the 4 wire FET you are going to use to program eZ430U.

I attached a socket like above photos, because I was planning to use JTAG interface a lot (to debug D/FW :-). But D/FW can be upgraded from USB port, so once your eZ430U gets D/FW, it is rare that you have to use JTAG to program MSP430F1612 on eZ430. You need JTAG interface only when things really messed up. This way might be easier for most of you.

The followings are the instructions to build host side tools.

edit Makefile in dfw directory and correct your BFD library's location.
make will make dmwt command and other utilities.
examples/*/Makefile contains examples how to use dmwt.
(cd gdbproxy; ./configure && make) will make gdbproxy. (optional)

Step1

The photo below shows what you will need.

4 wire JTAG programmer (FET430UIF). ``mother FET''
eZ430U (target FET).
USB charger to supply power for eZ430U.
USB cable to connect charger and eZ430U. (optional)

Step2

Connect mother FET to whatever host computer which you can use mother FET to program MSP430.
Connect USB charger to AC to power eZ430U up.
Use mother FET's tool to program dfw.ez430u.ihex.

Step3

Disconnect JTAG from eZ430U.
Connect eZ430U to your host Unix system.
/dev/cu.usbmodem001 (MacOSX) or /dev/ttyACM0 (Linux) will appear.
It might take about 10 seconds after you plug your eZ430U into your host before these device node appears in the file system. (EEPROM is being programmed)

To check if D/FW is installed successfully, you can try to update firmware by using dmwt command, like follows.

$ ../dmwt -p /dev/cu.usbmodem001 -f dfw.ez430u.ihex 
examining firmware version...
program matches with the target, no need to update
$

dmwt compares the specified firmware and the content of the flash, before it updates the flash. In this case, you have already written the same firmware by mother FET. dmwt will not update eZ430U's firmware.

Step4

You likely want to install dmwt and gdbproxy into your /usr/local/bin

$ sudo cp dmwt /usr/local/bin
$ cd gdbproxy
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo cp gdbproxy /usr/local/bin/msp430-gdbproxy

Now you can enjoy development MSP430 system under your favorite operating systems.

$ dmwt -p /dev/cu.usbmodem001 -c "SBW" demo2
examining current version of the target device.......
It took 2.226083 seconds
OK, the program needs to be updated.
Erasing flash..
It took 0.298997 seconds
programming............ done
It took 9.391335 seconds
$

This contains a few small examples for RF2500T.