Digilent Serial Flash Utility User Manual

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Revision: February 20, 2011

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Overview

The Serial Flash Utility is a command line program that can be used to read and write data to serial
flash memories using the SPI interface, such as are found on the Digilent PmodSF. It is used with the
Digilent Adept runtime software and a Digilent Adept compatible programming device supporting the
DSPI interface, such as the JTAG-USB Full Speed Module, or the JTAG-USB Programming Cable.

Usage

In some cases, the SPI flash memory device is built into the Adept compatible product. In this case,
no special connections are required. Refer to the documentation for the specific product for
information such as the flash memory type, port numbers and other parameters to use.

To use the Serial Flash Utility to interface with a Digilent PmodSF and a Digilent Adept comptable
programming cable, such as the JTAG-USB Full Speed Module, it is necessary to provide power to
the PmodSF and the programming cable. This can be done using a Digilent PmodREG1 and a
Digilent 5V regulated power supply. Attach connector J1 of a PmodREG1 to the programming cable.
Then, attach the PmodSF to connector J2 of the PmodREG1. A Digilent 5V power supply or other
regulated power supply is then used to power the PmodREG1.

Syntax

The general command syntax is as follows:

sfutil [-<opt1> <val1>] [-<opt1> <val2>] …

The following command line options are supported:

-d <devname>

Specify the name of the Digilent Adept compatible programming device. This string is used to
open the connection to the programming device. The programming device name is case
sensitive. There is no default and so this is a required option. This name can be either the
name that is stored in the programming device itself, or a name stored in a device table
maintained by the Adept software.

-m <memtype>

Specify the type of SPI memory device to be programmed. If this option isn’t specified, the
program will attempt the read the id code from the device and map it to a know device. The
program supports the following values (these are not case sensitive):

M25P80 Micron/ST Microelectronics/Numonyx 8 Mbit part

M25P16 Micron/ST Microelectronics/Numonyx 16 Mbit part

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Serial Flash Utility Reference Manual

M25P32 Micron/ST Microelectronics/Numonyx 32 Mbit part

M25P64 Micron/ST Microelectronics/Numonyx 64 Mbit part

M25P128 Micron/ST Microelectronics/Numonyx 128 Mbit part

N25Q128 Micron 128 Mbit part

AT45DB08 Atmel 8Mbit part

-id

Read and print the manufacturer id code from the device.

-w <filename>

Write the contents of the specified file to the memory device. When writing, sector erase
commands will be used to erase sectors in the flash memory device that written. This erase
can be suppressed by using the –NE option.

-r <filename>

Read the contents of the memory device and write it to specified file.

-e

Erase the range of sectors specified by the –a and –l parameters. This is done using sector
erase commands.

-E

Bulk erase the entire flash memory device before programming. This is done by default when
writing to the memory device.

-NE

Don’t erase the device before programming.

-a <address>

Specify the device memory address at which to start reading or writing. The default starting
address is 0 if this is not specified. The value can be given as either a decimal number of a
hexadecimal number (using the ‘C language’ 0xABCD syntax for specifying a hexadecimal
value).

-l <length>

Specify the number of bytes to read or write. The value can be given in either decimal or
hexadecimal. If this option is not specified when writing the contents of a file to the memory
device the entire contents of the file will be programmed. If this option is given but is greater
than the length of the file, only the number of bytes specified by the source file will be written.
If this option is not specified when reading, the entire contents of memory (starting at the
address specified by the -a option) will be read from the memory device and written to the file.

-fb, -fi, -fh

Specify the file data format:

-fb

, raw binary;

-fi

, Intel hex file format;

-fh

generic hex file
format. For the raw binary format, the file data is written to memory unmodified, or the memory
data is written to the file unmodified. The generic hex file format assumes each line in the
source file contains a series of bytes as two digit hexadecimal numbers separated by spaces.

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