Image Checker

When an embed­ded SoC pow­ers up, it first reads its boot con­fig­u­ra­tion from inter­nal FLASH. This con­fig­u­ra­tion can define the boot core sequence, whether the debug port is enabled, and more.

An incor­rect con­fig­u­ra­tion can cause unex­pect­ed behav­ior and if the debug port is dis­abled, the SoC can no longer be accessed. While this might be required in a final prod­uct, in a develop­ment and test envi­ron­ment, the device needs to be phys­i­cal­ly replaced.

To pre­vent such unde­sired effects, winIDEA pro­vides the Image Check­er.

Image check­ing works by ana­lyz­ing the down­loaded con­tent and the cur­rent SoC con­fig­u­ra­tion. Before the FLASH is repro­grammed, winIDEA will sim­u­late the FLASH image and what effects it would have.

Here are some of the checks per­formed on an AURIX device:

  • If a pass­word is enabled, com­pare it to the expect­ed one
  • Com­pare the con­fig­ured Start­up Address in the User Con­fig­u­ra­tion Blocks (UCBs) with the Pro­gram Entry Point in the ELF file
  • Com­pare lock-step con­fig­u­ra­tion with the expect­ed one
  • Ver­i­fy hard­ened PFLASH pro­tec­tion when using a debug lock
  • Check whether any PFLASH sec­tors are con­fig­ured as HSM-exclu­sive
  • Ensure that the HSM code is cor­rect­ly loaded into the des­ig­nat­ed HSM Code Sec­tor
  • etc.

Note: The Image check­er requires a winIDEA Pro license.

Useful links

winIDEA – All-in-one down­load

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