VME-SAM3X firmware

Tools required for building on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS:

• gcc-arm-none-eabi
• libnewlib-arm-none-eabi
• make

When installing the tools needed for building, you might want to specify --no-install-recommends in order to avoid also installing the C++ standard library for ARM, which is very large and not needed by this project. For example:

apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
  gcc-arm-none-eabi libnewlib-arm-none-eabi make

Tools required for installing the firmware image:

• bossa

Building

make clean; make all

Installation

• Power up VME-EVM-300 or VME-EVR-300 with jumper installed in SAM Erase header.
• Remove jumper and power cycle.
• Connect USB cable to USB port in front panel.
• Run bossac -e -w -v -b -p /dev/ttyUSB1 build/EVM_300_UDP.bin
• Power cycle.

There is an alternative method for installing the firmware image, but it is only easier when one has already setup debugging (OpenOCD must be running and connected to the target device):

make install

Debugging

GDB and OpenOCD can be used in order to debug (and install) the firmware. For this, you have to install two additional packages:

• gdb-arm-none-eabi
• openocd

Connect a USB cable to the USB port in the front panel and then run:

openocd -f OpenOCD/mrf-vme-usb.cfg -f OpenOCD/vme-evm-300.cfg

(for the VME-EVM-300) or

openocd -f OpenOCD/mrf-vme-usb.cfg -f OpenOCD/vme-evr-300.cfg

(for the VME-EVR-300).

Open a separate terminal and ensure that the correct firmware image is loaded (GDB cannot work correctly if the running image and the image used by GDB differ). In case of doubt, run make install to install the built image. Subsequently, run the following command to launch GDB and connect it to the device.

make debug

This assumes that OpenOCD is running on the same host as GDB and listening for a connection from GDB on port 3333. If this does not apply, you have to modify .gdbinit.