MSP430 Slow erase and downloads using TI FET430UIF

Follow

Devon St. Pierre

• April 10, 2014 21:36

Greetings...

I'm using CrossWorks for MSP430 Release 2.2.1.2013112503.19841

I'm running Windows 7 Pro with SP1

I'm using an MSP-FET430UIF to download and debug with. (with FW version 20409001)

My target processor is an F5438A

My project is currently using ~40Kbytes of the available 256Kbytes in the processor.

Used to be for me that I could download (i.e. erase, program, and verify) my project in a matter of a couple of seconds. Then I did something here a couple of weeks ago (not sure what) and now my erase time is ~30 seconds with programming and verifying taking another 10-15 seconds.    I have a second FET430UIF on another USB cable that corresponds to a different COM port on my PC.  Right after the slow down first occurred, I switched over to the second FET430UIF (changed the Target Connection in the Target Properties) and was able to fix the problem for a while.  Then the slow down occurred on the second FET430UIF.  I switched back to the first and again it worked fine a couple of times and then the slow down returned.  Since then I'm running slow on both of my FET430UIFs.

Everything works, its just slow.  Any thoughts out there on what I've done to slow things up?

0

• 

  Devon St. Pierre

  • April 10, 2014 22:49

  OK.  I remember what I did a couple of weeks ago but I don't know why it was causing a problem.

  I found that each time I was downloading my project it was erasing the data I was storing in one of the INFO memories on the processor.  So I went into Project Properties under Target Loader Options and changed Erase All to No.  Which fixed my problem with INFO memory being erased.

  Anyway I just went back in and changed Erase All to Yes and tried to download.  I was expecting things to be even slower but doing this actually sped things up back to the way they used to be.  Next I went in again and changed Erase All back to No because I don't want to be losing data store in my INFO memory and try down loading again.  Down loading remainder at the fast speeding, only taking a few seconds.

  I can't explain what was going on, but I believe I'm back to normal for now...

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Paul Curtis

  • April 11, 2014 08:32

  Try setting the FET430UIF to erase everything (Erase All = Yes) rather than use a differential download (Erase All = No).  There are some words in TI's flashing app notes about programming and when to do a complete erase and when over-programming is allowed on a per-page basis.  I'm fairly sure that you can use Erase All = Yes and lock the info memory from being erased using the properties, which is possibly a good solution.

  All in all, the MSP430 devices with >64K flash are simply a pain from whichever angle you look at them.  :-(

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Devon St. Pierre

  • April 11, 2014 16:41

  How do you "lock the info memory from being erased using the properties" ?   In Project Properties under Target Loader Options there is a "Enable Info SegmentA Erase/Write.  which presumably locks/unlocks InfoA.  There is also a bit (LOCKA) in the FCTL3 register that will lock/unlock InfoA.   I'm not seeing anything that will allow me to lock the other (B, C, and D) info memories.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink
• 

  Paul Curtis

  • April 11, 2014 16:49

  I don't think those memories can be locked; The FET430UIF programs about 8Kbytes/second.  It isn't fast.

  0

  Comment actions Permalink

Please sign in to leave a comment.