[product_section_start:product_page_section_overview.png]

ADVANCE INFORMATION – THIS PROJECT IS NOT YET RELEASED (ORDERING NOT YET AVAILABLE)

This driver provides a complete bootloader solution for the Microchip PIC24 family of microcontrollers.

[product_section_start:product_info_include_quick_driver_top_box]

[product_section_start:product_page_section_details.png]

Designing a sophisticated bootloader tends to be a complex task that is often painful to debug. This driver provides a ready made bootloader system for the for the Microchip PIC24 family of microcontrollers. It provides everything you need to allow your device to be upgraded in the field via a flash firmware upgrade file.

This driver provides the following features:

The driver is based around a seperate bootloader and flash firmware project. The bootloader occupies a small section of memory at the start of the PIC program memory space. The flash firmware occupies the remainder of the program memory space. External memory is used to temporary store the upgrade file with your project providing the means to read and write that memory.

To upgrade the firmware your project simply deals with receiving the upgrade file over whatever communication interface your project has (e.g. Ethernet, USB, RS485, RS232, CAN etc) and passing it byte by byte to the driver. Once all of the firmware file has been received the driver verifies the new firmware file is valid and if it is a marker is stored for the bootloader. The PIC is then restarted and the bootloader deals with overwriting the flash firmware with the new file, verifying its integrity before running exiting to allow the the new firmware version to run

Firmware upgrades may also be provided using a removable memory device such as a memory card, USB dongle etc. Your application deals with providing the means to read the file from the card and the driver takes care of the rest.

Included PC application to convert the compilers .hex file into binary file ready for uploading / passing to driver.

The driver deals with ensuring the PIC24 interrupt vector tables are updated for new flash firmware versions.

16 bit checksum used to verify integrity of the firmware upgrade at every stage.

Allows you to encrypt your firmware upgrade file if desired.

Designed with failure in mind – should the upgrade process fail at any stage due to the PIC loosing power, corrupt communication of the file, etc, operation is not comprimised (the current firmware will continue to function or the upgrade process will complete when power is next returned).

The driver will deal with external memory typtes that require block erase and block write access (e.g. cheaper flash memory devices).

Please view the sample source code files for full information regarding the driver.

[product_section_start:product_page_section_compilers.png]

		Tested with the Microchip C30 MPLAB C Compiler for PIC24 family of 16 bit microcontrollers. Free version of the compiler available from Microchip.

[product_section_start:product_page_section_sample_files.png]

	Download sample source code files (V1.00) (See the source code files for the revision history)

[product_section_start:product_info_include_quick_driver]