JP3305667B2 - How to write firmware data - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of writing firmware data, and more particularly to a method of writing firmware data transmitted from a host device to a storage device via a buffer provided in a control device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a flash ROM (Read Only M)
When a storage device such as an emory is commercialized, an update method is known in which firmware data is transmitted from a higher-level device such as a personal computer and written into the ROM via a control device such as a writing device. The firmware data refers to a piece of software that is implemented as hardware, that is, a basic program or data stored in a ROM.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of each device for realizing the update method. In this configuration, the control device 22 includes a buffer 23 for temporarily storing firmware data transmitted from the host device 21. The control device 22 includes a ROM 24 to which the firmware data stored in the buffer 23 is written. Connected.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of the host device in the conventional update system, and FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing the operation of the control device in the conventional update system. With reference to FIGS. 8 and 9, processing in the above-described conventional update method will be described.

In this conventional example, it is assumed that, for example, RS232C, which is a standard interface, is used as communication means between the host device 21 and the control device 22. In this case, the host device 2
When command 1 transmits command 1 to control device 22 (step A19 in FIG. 8), control device 22 that has received command 1
(Step A32 in FIG. 9) clears the buffer 23 (Step A33). As a result, if the clearing process for the buffer 23 ends abnormally (step A3
4), the control device 22 ends all operations. On the other hand, when the clearing process for the buffer 23 is completed normally,
The control device 22 sends a signal indicating the normal end to the host device 2
1 (step A35).

When the host device 21 receives the signal indicating the normal end (step A20 in FIG. 8), it transmits the command 2 (step A21). Next, the control device 22
Receives command 2 (step A3 in FIG. 9).
6), based on the write position information included in the command 2,
The received partial data is written into the buffer 23 (step A37). Further, whether or not the writing process has been completed normally, that is, the checksum data added to the partial data written in the buffer 23 and the sum data calculated at the time of writing the partial data are compared to determine whether the partial processing in the buffer 23 has been completed. It is determined whether or not the data is normal (step A38). If the partial data is abnormal, the entire operation is terminated. On the other hand, if the partial data is normal,
The control device 22 sends a signal indicating the normal end to the host device 21.
(Step A39).

Next, upon receiving the signal of normal termination (step A22 in FIG. 8), the host device 21 determines whether or not all the partial data in the firmware data has been transmitted to the control device 22 (step A23). As a result, if not all of the partial data has been transmitted, the higher-level device 21 transmits the next partial data to the control device 22 again as the command 2 (step A21). Step A
In 23, when the higher-level device 21 has finished transmitting all the partial data, the higher-level device 21 transmits the command 3 to the control device 22 (step A24).

Further, upon receiving the command 3 (step A40 in FIG. 9), the control device 22 calculates the checksum data added to each of the partial data written in the buffer 23 and calculates at the time of writing each of the partial data. By comparing with the sum data, the validity in the buffer 23 is checked (step A41), and if not valid, the whole operation is ended. On the other hand, if all the partial data are valid, the control device 22 writes all the data in the buffer 23 into the ROM 24 (step A42), and ends the update.

[0009]

However, the above-mentioned conventional update method has the following problems. For example, firmware data transmitted from the higher-level device 21 to the control device 22 includes 100-byte partial data 1000.
Command 2 consisting of 10000000 bytes consisting of 0 bytes, a 1-byte command part added to each partial data, and a 4-byte write start position and a write end position
Contains. When transmitting the firmware data, if the communication rate is, for example, 19200 bps, (1 + 4 + 4 + 100) ×
A huge communication time of 10000 × 8 (bits) / 19200 = 454 (seconds) was required.

In view of the above, it is an object of the present invention to provide a firmware data writing method capable of shortening communication time when writing firmware data transmitted from a host device to a storage device via a control device as much as possible. And

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, a method of writing firmware data according to the present invention is directed to a method for writing firmware data transmitted from a higher-level device located above a control device to a buffer provided in the control device. Transmitting a clear command for performing a clear process of writing a specific data pattern to the buffer from the host device to the control device, wherein the host device sends the clear command to the control device. Dividing the entire firmware data to be written into the buffer into a plurality of partial data, and determining valid partial data in each partial data and invalid partial data having the same value as the specific data pattern;
Transmitting, to the control device, a buffer write command obtained by adding write position information to the buffer to the valid part data, and writing the valid part data to the buffer in which the specific data pattern is written. And

In the conventional method, all valid partial data and invalid partial data included in a plurality of partial data are transmitted. On the other hand, in the writing method of the present invention, a clear process for writing a specific data pattern into a buffer according to a clear command is performed. After that, the firmware data can be analyzed and divided into invalid partial data and valid partial data, and write position information can be added to only the valid partial data and transmitted as a buffer write command. This can reduce the number of bytes of data actually transmitted,
The communication time for writing the firmware data transmitted from the host device to the storage device can be greatly reduced. Further, since the clear command is generated prior to the step of determining the partial data, the subsequent firmware data writing process is facilitated.

[0013]

[0014] Further, after the step of writing valid partial data to the buffer, a step of transmitting a write command for writing the valid partial data written to the buffer to the storage device from the higher-level device to the control device. It is preferred to include. As a result, the valid part data once written in the buffer can be quickly written to the storage device.

Preferably, after writing the valid partial data to the storage device according to the write command,
Determining whether the valid partial data written to the buffer is good or not, and if the valid partial data is defective, retransmitting the buffer write command from the host device to the control device. In this case, by transmitting the buffer write command again when the written valid partial data is defective, the processing can be continued without wasting the valid partial data that has been successfully written in the buffer until then. .

[0016]

The present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining a firmware data update method (writing method) according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, the control device 12 includes a buffer 13. The control device 12 is connected to a host device 11 and a ROM 14 such as a rewritable flash ROM.

The host device 11 analyzes firmware data and communicates with the control device 12. Control device 1
2 communicates with the host device 11 and
Buffer 13 based on the command information received from
And a process of reading / writing firmware data from / to the ROM 14.

The firmware data is temporarily read / written to / from the buffer 13 by the control device 12. The firmware data temporarily written to the buffer 13 is written to the ROM 14 by the control device 12. The control device 12 reads the firmware data in the ROM 14 so that the control device 1
2 itself is updated.

In the above update method, the processing generally proceeds as follows. That is, when the host device 11 transmits a corresponding command to the control device 12 so that the buffer 13 can be written in a specific data pattern in advance, the host device 11 divides the firmware data into a plurality of partial data, and Determines whether data is valid or invalid.
As a result, when the partial data is valid partial data that is not a specific data pattern, the higher-level device 11 sends to the control device 12 a command including information on a write start position, information on a write end position, and a command portion of the partial data. Send. On the other hand, when the partial data is invalid partial data having a specific data pattern, the host device 11 does not transmit a command.

When receiving the command, the control device 12 writes the effective partial data into the buffer 13 in accordance with the information on the write start position and the information on the write end position. Then, when all the communication of the divided valid part data is completed, the upper level device 11 transmits a command to the control device 12 to update. The control device 12
When this command is received, the firmware data written in the buffer 13 is checked for validity,
The firmware data in the buffer 13 is written to the ROM 14. As described above, after writing and clearing the buffer 13 with the specific data pattern in advance, only the effective part data other than the specific data pattern is communicated with the write position information added, so that high-speed communication processing can be performed. .

FIG. 4 schematically shows the structure of a command transmitted from the host device 11. Commands transmitted from the higher-level device 11 include commands 1 and 3 composed of only a command part, and commands 2 composed of a command part, a write start position part, a write end position part, and a partial data part.
There is. The write start position part and the write end position part are
Construct write position information. Command 1 is buffer 13
The command 2 is a command for performing the process of transferring the partial data and the process of writing to the buffer 13, and the command 3 is a command for performing the process of writing to the ROM 14.

Next, the processing of the update method will be described in detail with reference to a flowchart. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation of the host device 11, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the operation of the control device 12.

When the host device 11 transmits the command 1 (FIG. 4) to the control device 12 at step A1 in FIG. 2, the control device 12 receives the command 1 (step A1 in FIG. 3).
8) Write a hexadecimal value of FF (hereinafter, referred to as FF) to all areas in the buffer 13 (hereinafter, this writing process is referred to as "clearing the buffer 13").
(Step A9). Hexadecimal FF is represented by binary “11”.
111111 ", indicating an initial state in which all 8 bits included in the data are" 1 ". That is, the partial data of the FF indicates invalid partial data that does not actually have a function as data.

In step A10 of FIG.
It is determined whether or not the clearing process has been completed normally. If the clearing process has been abnormally completed, the control device 12 ends all the operations. On the other hand, if the clearing of the buffer 13 has been completed normally, the control device 12 transmits a signal to the effect that the clearing has been normally completed to the host device 11 in step A11.

When the host device 11 receives the signal indicating the normal end (step A2 in FIG. 2), the firmware data to be transmitted (hereinafter also referred to as “all data” for the partial data) is appropriately divided into data (partial data). ) Are all FF
Is determined (step A3). As a result,
If the contents of the partial data are all FFs, the host device 11 determines that the partial data is invalid partial data, and determines in step A6 whether transmission of all the partial data has been completed. On the other hand, if the content of the partial data is not all FF in step A3, the host device 11 determines that the partial data is valid partial data, and writes the write position information and the command in the valid partial data. Command 2 (FIG. 4) by adding
2 (step A4).

When the control device 12 receives the command 2 from the host device 11 (step A12 in FIG. 3), the control device 12 stores the valid part data included in the command 2 into a buffer based on the write position information included in the command 2. Then, writing is performed from the write start position to the write end position (step A13).

Further, in step A14, it is determined whether or not the writing process has been normally completed, that is, the checksum data added to the valid partial data written in the buffer 13, the sum data calculated at the time of writing the valid partial data, and It is determined whether or not the partial data in the buffer 13 is normal by the comparison of the above. If the valid partial data is abnormal, the control device 12 ends the entire operation. On the other hand, if the partial data is normal, the control device 12 transmits a signal indicating normal end to the host device 11 (step A1).
5).

When the host device 11 receives the signal indicating the normal end (step A5 in FIG. 2), at step A6,
It is determined whether or not all the effective partial data has been transmitted to the control device 12. As a result, when not all the effective partial data has been transmitted yet, the upper level device 11 proceeds to step A3.
It is determined again whether or not the contents of the next partial data are all FF. Thereafter, checking and transmission of the divided partial data are repeated, and when transmission of all valid partial data is completed (step A6), the higher-level device 11 transmits a command 3 (FIG. 4) to the control device 12 (FIG. 4). Step A7).

Next, when the control device 12 receives the command 3 in step A16 in FIG.
By comparing the checksum data added to each valid part data written in the buffer 13 with the sum data calculated at the time of writing each valid part data,
The validity of the data in the buffer 13 is checked, and if it is not valid, the entire operation is terminated. On the other hand, when all the valid partial data are valid, the control device 12 writes all the valid partial data in the buffer 13 into the ROM 14 (step A18), and ends the update.

Next, the update method will be described with a specific example. FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing this specific example. When the total number of firmware data (all data) 1 is 1,000,000 bytes and the number of data per partial data is 100 bytes, the firmware data 1 is composed of 10000 partial data from partial data 1 to 10000 partial data. Is divided into In this,
For example, it is assumed that the partial data 2 and each of the partial data from 5000 to 9999 are data written in FF.

It is assumed that RS232C, which is a standard interface, is used as a communication means between the host device 11 and the control device 12. In this case, the host device 11 sends the control device 12
When the command 1 is transmitted to the controller 12, the control device 12 that has received the command 1 clears the buffer 13 with FF. When the clearing process of the buffer 13 has been completed normally, the control device 12 transmits a signal to the effect that the process has been normally completed to the host device 11.

Host device 1 that has received a signal indicating normal termination
No. 1 checks partial data 1. In this case, FIG.
As shown in (1), since the 100-byte data inside is not all FFs in the partial data 1, the upper level device 11 determines the partial data 1 as valid partial data, the command part is 2, and the write start position part is 1 and write end position part is 1
The write position information of 00 is added to the partial data 1 to make a command 2, which is transmitted to the control device 12.

When receiving the command 2, the control device 12 writes the received partial data 1 in the range from the write start position 1 to the write end position 100 in the buffer 13. Further, it is determined whether or not the writing process has been normally completed. If the writing process has been normally completed, the control device 12 transmits a signal to the effect that the writing process has been normally completed to the host device 11.

Upon receiving the signal of the normal end, the host device 11 determines whether or not all valid partial data has been transmitted. At this time, since only one piece of partial data has been transmitted, a check is made for the next partial data 2.

Further, since the partial data 2 in which all the data are FFs are determined to be invalid partial data, the transmission of the partial data 2 is not performed, and the host device 11 determines whether or not the transmission of all the partial data has been completed. Is determined. In this case, since only the partial data 2 has been completed, the next partial data 3 is checked.

Thereafter, the above processing is repeatedly executed up to the partial data 10000, and when the transmission of all the valid partial data to the control device 12 is completed, the host device 11
Is transmitted to the control device 12.

Next, upon receiving the command 3, the control device 12 determines the validity of all data written in the buffer 13, and if the data is valid,
All valid part data temporarily written in ROM
Write to 14.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described. FIG. 6 shows the host device 11 in this embodiment.
It is a flowchart showing the operation of the side. FIG. 9 shows the flowchart of FIG.
5 is different from the processing when the signal of the normal end is not received. This embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. 6 and FIGS. 3 to 5 used in the first embodiment.

Also in this embodiment, it is assumed that RS232C is used as a communication means between the host device 11 and the control device 12. For example, the transmission of partial data 9999 from the higher-level device 11 to the control device 12 ends (step A25 in FIG. 6).
To A28), and assume that the control device 12 has normally finished writing the partial data 9999 to the buffer 13 (steps A8 to A14 in FIG. 3). As a result, the host device 11
When a signal indicating the normal end is received from the control device 12 in step A29 of FIG. 6, after checking the transmission of all valid partial data in step A30, in step A27,
The next partial data 10000 is checked.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 5, since the contents of the partial data 10000 are not all FFs, the host device 11 determines the partial data 10000 as valid partial data, The start position part is 999901, the write end position part is 1,000,000, and the partial data is transmitted to the control device 12 as a command 2 composed of 10,000 (step A28 in FIG. 6). When receiving the command 2 (step A1 in FIG. 3)
2) Write the partial data 10000 into the buffer 13 (step A13).

Here, for some reason, the partial data 100
If the writing process of 00 is abnormally ended, that is, if the partial data 10000 after writing has an error (step A14 in FIG. 3), the upper level device 11 receives a signal indicating normal end from the control device 12. Since it is not possible (step A29 in FIG. 6), step A28 is repeated and the same command 2 is transmitted to the control device 12 again.

After ending all the operations according to the result of step A14 in FIG. 3, the control device 12 returns to the beginning, passes No in step A8 in FIG.
Command 2 from 1 is received. Next, the buffer 13
If the writing of the partial data 10000 to the host device succeeds (step A14), a signal indicating the normal end is transmitted to the host device 11 (step A15).

Further, when the host device 11 receives a signal indicating the normal end from the control device 12 (step A in FIG. 6).
29) Then, it is checked whether or not all valid partial data have been transmitted (step A30). in this case,
Since the partial data 10000 has been transmitted and ended normally, the host device 11 transmits the command 3 to the control device 12 (step A31).

When receiving the command 3 (step 16 in FIG. 3), the control device 12 judges the validity of all the valid partial data written in the buffer 13 (step A17). As a result, if all valid partial data are valid, all valid partial data in
14 (step A18).

In the present embodiment, in addition to the effects of the first embodiment, when the host device 11 cannot receive a normal end signal from the control device 12 after transmitting the command 2 including the partial data, By transmitting the same command 2 again, it is possible to obtain an effect that the update process can be continuously executed without wasting the effective partial data written in the buffer 13 by the control device 12 until then.

As described above, in the first and second embodiments, the buffer 13 is cleared in advance by the FF,
There is no need to transmit invalid partial data composed of FFs, and the number of partial data to be transmitted is reduced. For this reason,
All firmware data (all data) is stored in the host device 11
The writing to the buffer 13 is faster than in the conventional method in which the data is transmitted to the control device 12 from the memory.

For example, referring to FIG.
, Partial data 3 to 4999, and partial data 10000
And only 5,000 commands as command 2 need be transmitted. In this case, when the command part in the command 2 is 1 byte, the write start position part is 4 bytes, and the write end position part is 4 bytes, if the communication rate is 19200 bps, the communication time is (1 + 4 + 4 + 100) × 5000 × 8 × 19200 =
It takes only 227 (seconds), which is 454
(Seconds). Further, since the number of data to be transmitted from the higher-level device 11 to the buffer 13 is reduced, the probability that a failure such as partial data being destroyed during transmission or partial data not being received for some reason is greatly reduced. Thereby, the security of the partial data to be communicated can be ensured.

Although the present invention has been described based on the preferred embodiment, the method for writing firmware data of the present invention is not limited to the configuration of the above-described embodiment. The method of writing firmware data obtained by making various modifications and changes from the configuration described above is also included in the scope of the present invention.

[0049]

As described above, according to the firmware data writing method of the present invention, it is possible to further reduce the communication time when writing the firmware data transmitted from the host device to the storage device via the control device. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram for explaining an update method according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an operation of the host device in the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an operation on the control device side in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram schematically showing a configuration of a command transmitted from a higher-level device.

FIG. 5 is a diagram schematically showing a specific example of firmware data.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart illustrating an operation of a higher-level device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram for explaining a conventional update method.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing the operation of a conventional higher-level device.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart showing an operation of a conventional control device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 11: Host device 12: Control device 13: Buffer 14: ROM

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A firmware data writing method for writing firmware data transmitted from a host device located above a control device to a storage device via a buffer provided in the control device, wherein a specific data pattern is written to the buffer. Transmitting a clear command for performing a write clear process from the higher-level device to the controller; and, in the higher-level device, dividing the entire firmware data to be written into the buffer into a plurality of partial data, Discriminating between valid part data and invalid part data having the same value as the specific data pattern, and transmitting a buffer write command in which write position information to the buffer is added to the valid part data to the control device, The buffer in which the specific data pattern is written Writing the valid part data into the firmware data. 2. A step of transmitting a write command for writing the effective partial data written in the buffer to the storage device from the host device to the control device, following the step of writing the effective partial data to the buffer. The method for writing firmware data according to claim 1, further comprising: 3. After the valid partial data is written to the storage device according to the write command, the validity of the valid partial data written to the buffer is determined. 3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising transmitting the buffer write command from the device to the control device again.