Getting started with OpenOCD

As referenced in my JTAG Adapter post the OpenOCD project is an open source JTAG program and set of drivers.  Professional JTAG programmers can commonly cost US $100 and up (some are thousands), and are often proprietary to a specific development toolset.  Open source and open hardware efforts have made JTAG available at much lower cost and at least works with open source development toolsets such as gcc/gdb and Eclipse, as well as some commercial offerings that are built on Eclipse.

Olimex has collected these open source development toolsets with OpenOCD and created a single installer called Olimex OpenOCD Development Suite for use with their development boards and their JTAG programmer.   Installing their suite is one of the easiest ways to get an ARM gcc toolchain installed on your system with an IDE and JTAG programmer.  Their toolset includes OpenOCD, Eclipse, gcc/gdb, and Zylin Embedded CDT.  Sample projects are provided for some of their Atmel, STM32, and NXP (LPC) boards.  I found that I needed to perform slight revisions their OpenOCD scripts included in at least the SAM7-P256-cdc_FLASH project because they were out of date.  Once that was done, I was using my JTAG adapter with their ARM7 board performing programming and debugging.  This suite and examples can be leveraged to target other boards. 

OpenOCD can also be used directly from the command line to make a connection with a board, and then use telnet to issue commands (see User's Guide) to direct it.  From the command line you can verify and discover commands to issue to your board.  In the following examples I will use my JTAG programmer to talk to the STM32F4Discovery board.  I have a breakout board for this development board that includes a JTAG socket.  I have disconnected the jumpers on the STM32F4Discovery for its onboard ST-LINK/V2 debugger, so I can use my JTAG programmer instead.

First you must have an interface script to talk to your JTAG programmer.  From the openocd-0.6.1 directory, I copied scripts/interface/ftdi/flossjtag.cfg to the file ft2232h.cfg in the current directory.  Then I commented out the ftdi_device_desc statement in that file, and appended
    adapter_khz 500
to the end of the file.

$ bin/openocd-0.6.1.exe -f ft2232h.cfg -f scripts/target/stm32f4x.cfg

Open On-Chip Debugger 0.6.1 (2012-10-07-10:34)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read    http://openocd.sourceforge.net/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
WARNING!
This file was not tested with real interface, it is based on code in ft2232.c.
Please report your experience with this file to openocd-devel mailing list,
so it could be marked as working or fixed.
Info : only one transport option; autoselect 'jtag'
adapter speed: 500 kHz
adapter speed: 1000 kHz
adapter_nsrst_delay: 100
jtag_ntrst_delay: 100
cortex_m3 reset_config sysresetreq
Info : clock speed 1000 kHz
Info : JTAG tap: stm32f4x.cpu tap/device found: 0x4ba00477 (mfg: 0x23b, part: 0xba00, ver: 0x4)
Info : JTAG tap: stm32f4x.bs tap/device found: 0x06413041 (mfg: 0x020, part: 0x6413, ver: 0x0)
Info : stm32f4x.cpu: hardware has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints

Then I open a telnet window to localhost port 4444.  From here I can issue various commands to OpenOCD to perform JTAG commands.

$ telnet localhost 4444

Open On-Chip Debugger
> reset halt
JTAG tap: stm32f4x.cpu tap/device found: 0x4ba00477 (mfg: 0x23b, part: 0xba00, ver: 0x4)
JTAG tap: stm32f4x.bs tap/device found: 0x06413041 (mfg: 0x020, part: 0x6413, ver: 0x0)
target state: halted
target halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread
xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0xfffffffe msp: 0xfffffffc
> flash probe 0
device id = 0x10016413
flash size = 1024kbytes
device id = 0x10016413
flash size = 1024kbytes
flash 'stm32f2x' found at 0x08000000
> flash banks
#0 : stm32f4x.flash (stm32f2x) at 0x08000000, size 0x00100000, buswidth 0, chipwidth 0
> flash list
{name stm32f2x base 134217728 size 1048576 bus_width 0 chip_width 0}
> flash erase_check 0
successfully checked erase state
        #  0: 0x00000000 (0x4000 16kB) erased
        #  1: 0x00004000 (0x4000 16kB) erased
        #  2: 0x00008000 (0x4000 16kB) erased
        #  3: 0x0000c000 (0x4000 16kB) erased
        #  4: 0x00010000 (0x10000 64kB) erased
        #  5: 0x00020000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        #  6: 0x00040000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        #  7: 0x00060000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        #  8: 0x00080000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        #  9: 0x000a0000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        # 10: 0x000c0000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
        # 11: 0x000e0000 (0x20000 128kB) erased
> dump_image image.bin 0x08000000 0x100000
dumped 1048576 bytes in 14.406221s (71.080 KiB/s)
> flash write_image erase stm32f4discovery_00.s19
auto erase enabled
wrote 1048576 bytes from file stm32f4discovery_00.s19 in 31.499985s (32.508 KiB/s)
> reset run
JTAG tap: stm32f4x.cpu tap/device found: 0x4ba00477 (mfg: 0x23b, part: 0xba00, ver: 0x4)
JTAG tap: stm32f4x.bs tap/device found: 0x06413041 (mfg: 0x020, part: 0x6413, ver: 0x0)
> exit


^C

There you have it, some example OpenOCD commands.  Hope you learned something useful.

OpenOCD FT2232H based JTAG Adapter(s) with UART

USB to JTAG, and JTAG to JTAG adapters

JTAG adapters are commonly used to program and debug microcontrollers and microprocessors.  This circuit is a prototype of one that is compatible with OpenOCD which is an open source JTAG program and set of drivers.  The board and circuit presented here is simply a set of connections, jumpers, and sockets that leverage the FT2232H Mini Module as a USB to JTAG adapter. 

Four JTAG and/or SWD ports are provided for compatibility with a variety of development boards: 6-pin ST-LINK, 8-pin LPC-Link, 10-pin JTAG, 20-pin JTAG. 

Using one of two plug in modules, the 10-pin is either 0.05" pitch or 0.1" pitch. I plan to include both 10-pin formats on any revisions to this JTAG board so I can easily adapt between the formats.

When used as a USB JTAG adapter, only one of the JTAG or SWD ports is used.  Note that pin 1 is consistently in the upper left on this board.  Ribbon cables or socket cables are used to connect to the target board.  It is useful to have sets of cables that support all these pin-out formats.  Cables are quicker and easier than single conductor jumpers between individual connector pins.

An alternate use is to adapt from one pin-out to another when using other JTAG and/or SWD programmers.  In this case the mini module can be removed or simply disconnect the USB cable from the computer.  The board is only being used to convert pin-outs.  For example, I can use a 6-conductor socket to socket cable to connect the ST-LINK port to the ST-LINK socket on my STM32F4Discovery board, and then connect the LPC-Link socket via an appropriate cable to an LPCxpresso board.  I have used this method to program and debug my LPCxpresso board for LPC1343 with CooCox IDE.

Multiple JTAG adaptions are possible

• ST-LINK to LPC-Link
• ST-LINK to 10-pin
• ST-LINK to 20-pin
• LPC-Link to 10-pin
• LPC-Link to 20-pin
• 10-pin to 20-pin
• 10-pin (1.27mm) to 10-pin (2.54mm) in future revision

Boards I was able to communicate with either with OpenOCD, ST-LINK, or CoLinkEx using the JTAG adapter(s) board include:

• Netduino Shield Base Beta (STM32F205RE)
• Netduino Plus 2 (STM32F405RG)
• Arduino Due (ATSAM3X8E/AU)
• Simplecortex (LPC1769)
• STM32F4Discovery (STM32F407VG)
• CooCox Embedded Pi (STM32F103RB)
• NGX LPC1830-Xplorer
• Olimex SAM7-P256 (AT91SAM7S256)
• LPCxpresso for LPC1343

Caveats and Warnings.  Note that I did not do extensive testing.  I am not sure the RESET and RTCK lines are working.  Some boards I could only connect to using SWD instead of JTAG.  Driver installation and basic use of OpenOCD is not described in this post, so see Getting Started with OpenOCD.

Inspiration and References.  Most of the JTAG circuit is gleaned from multiple FTDI specifications regarding the FT2232H, Mini Module, and related MPSSE Basics Application Note AN_135.  And the circuit is very similar to the FLOSS-JTAG one shown here.



Under belly of the JTAG board

 


JTAG Schematic