Nuvoton development platform three gold steps: Step 3, system upgrade
Nuvoton thinks that in addition to having convenient development and mass production environments to allow clients to complete the manufacturing of products efficiently, convenient environments and sufficient tools must also be provided for follow-up product firmware upgrades to be considered a complete ecosystem. Therefore, Nuvoton provided ISP (In System Programming) programming software and the Nu-Link2-Pro program debugger for the upgrade stage so that clients can complete system upgrades through simple operations without removing the chips from the products.
The system upgrade process is straightforward (Figure 1); use the reserved port on the product, such as the UART interface, to connect the Nu-Link2-Me program debugger, or use the Nu-Link2-Pro as a bridge and connect to the host through the USB interface. There’s no need to plan additional communication interfaces specifically for upgrading. Next, use Nuvoton’s ISP programming software to perform upgrade settings, and the selected new version program can be programmed onto the target chip on the product. This article will introduce how to obtain the SIP programming software and briefly introduce Nu-Link2-Pro; detailed instructions will be presented in the next chapter.
Figure 1. Upgrade stage process
Nuvoton’s ISP programming software can be downloaded from Nuvoton’s official website; locate the “Software Development Tool” under the “Software and Tool” folder on the home page, and then click “Programming Software” to find the download link of the ISP programming software: NuMicro_ISP_Programming_tool_Vx.xx. The ISP programming software does not need to be installed; click on the executable file to use directly.
Nu-Link2-Pro (Figure 2) is a program debugger and includes various functions such as ETM (Embedded Trace Macrocell) tracking, USB to serial communication, serial data analysis, and ISP product firmware upgrade, etc. In addition, Nu-Link2-Pro can also function as a bridge to convert USB signals into the signal of other communication interfaces, such as the default I2C/ SPI/ CAN/ RS485/ UART, in the ISP programming software. Refer to the quick start guide or user manual on the Nu-Link2-Pro page of Nuvoton’s official website.
Figure 2. Nu-Link2-Pro
In the following chapter, we will use the SPI interface as an example to describe how to use Nu-Link2-Pro as a bridge to upgrade the product system through the ISP programming software.