Ticket #5314 (new defect)

Opened 5 years ago

Last modified 5 years ago

Next-generation XO should provide safe firmware update.

Reported by: cscott Owned by: wad
Priority: normal Milestone: Gen2
Component: hardware Version:
Keywords: Cc: wmb@…, smithbone, cscott
Action Needed: Verified: no
Deployments affected: Blocked By:
Blocking:

Description

In discussions with Richard, it seems like using an SPI flash with a 4k erase block might be sufficient to allow us to do a safe firmware update.

Change History

Changed 5 years ago by wmb@…

Define "safe firmware update"

How is this ticket different from the "recovery" portions of #978 ?

Changed 5 years ago by cscott

This ticket is concerned with the EC portions of 'safe firmware update'.

At the moment, we need to erase all of the EC code at some point, since the EC can only see a fixed 64k window of the SPI flash, and the erase block size is 64k. If we lose power between erasing the EC code and reflashing it, there is nothing we can do to recover the machine.

If the erase block size was 4k, the first 4k could be special EC recovery code, which ties in with the OFW recovery code discussed in #978.

Changed 5 years ago by cscott

  • summary changed from Intel XO should provide safe firmware update. to Next-generation XO should provide safe firmware update.

Changed 5 years ago by wmb@…

  • component changed from ofw - open firmware to hardware

Changing the component to hardware, because the suggested changes have to be applied at the hardware level, not in the firmware code.

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