The source code for wAVR and Maven firmware, both AVR programmer and Cortex-M debug variants, has been open-sourced on Github under a 3-clause BSD license.
See https://github.com/Syncena/Maven-firmware for the details.
Home of wAVR and Maven; the WiFi In-System Programmer/Debugger
The source code for wAVR and Maven firmware, both AVR programmer and Cortex-M debug variants, has been open-sourced on Github under a 3-clause BSD license.
See https://github.com/Syncena/Maven-firmware for the details.
Up until recently, Maven firmware (the one with ARM Cortex-M debug capability) has only been available with the original wAVR hardware. Unfortunately the firmware has outgrown the Flash/SRAM available on that board, and the replacement “Maven2” board is not ready for prime time (for a myriad of reasons).
Rather than waiting for Maven2 to be production-ready, you can now download, for free, a version of the firmware for NXP’s MCU-Link Debug Probe. The MCU-Link is an inexpensive (around $11) USB debug probe which normally ships with firmware supporting the standard CMSIS-DAP interface. Fortunately for us, the factory firmware can be replaced very easily with a port of Maven.
Maven on MCU-Link has all the same debug capabilities as you’d find on the native hardware:
Maven on MCU-Link is still a work-in-progress and updates will likely come thick and fast. The best part is that it will remain a free download.
Feedback, as usual, to support@maverick-embedded.co.uk. Alternatively, @maverick on the 1BitSquared Discord server.
We are pleased to announce the availability of a firmware update for both Maven and wAVR. Version 1.5 is a combination of new features, performance enhancements, and bug fixes.
Both products benefit from the following changes:
Maven also benefits from the following additions:
Version 1.5 is available here for Maven, and here for wAVR.
After a 12-month hiatus (self-imposed due to other work commitments) we’re pleased to announce that Maven and wAVR are back in stock on Tindie, with some great firmware improvements:
New devices will ship with firmware 1.3 from today. Existing customers can download 1.3 update images for wAVR here, and Maven here.
Maverick Embedded Technology is pleased to announce a new addition to our product line-up.
“Maven” is a WiFi-enabled ARM Cortex-M hardware (SWD) debugger and programmer which, through its built-in GDB Server, interfaces directly with the Gnu debugger “GDB” over the local network. This means any host capable of running GDB can be used with Maven. There’s an onboard OLED display showing Maven and Target status plus rs232 output from the target. The latter is also available over the network via telnet.
Maven uses the same underlying hardware as our wAVR product, but with very different firmware and an additional “paddle” board which interfaces Maven’s 10-pin target connector with most of the standard ARM JTAG/SWD connectors. At the present time Maven natively supports nearly all devices in Microchip’s “SAM” range of ARM Cortex-M micro controllers, with support for devices from other manufacturers in the pipeline. No configuration files or third-party interface software are required; Maven auto-detects SoC parameters such as CPU core type, on-chip memory map and debug features (h/w break points anyone?). Maven also incorporates support for programming Flash memory on all supported SoCs, again without the need for configuration files on the host.
Paddle-board and cables:
Here’s a list of the standout features
The design files for a 3D-printable enclosure are freely available here.
The user guide for Maven is available here.
Maven is available to buy on our Tindie Store.
We’ve been busy over the last month or so developing firmware for wAVR which will turn it into a fully-fledged ARM Cortex-M programmer and debugger!
The ARM firmware recognises and supports all (we hope) Microchip SAM ARM Cortex-M micro controllers and there are plans to extend that support to include Cortex-M based micro controllers from other manufacturers. After that, the roadmap includes support for Cortex-A SoCs.
Using its built-in GDB server, you can connect GDB for ARM directly to wAVR using the “target extended-remote” command. No additional software is required. Most other USB-based debuggers require an additional program such as OpenOCD to act as the middle-man between GDB and the target. The new ARM firmware does away completely with the need for a middle-man. There are no fiddly configuration files; it works straight out the box with your SAM micro. GDB features like single-step, breakpoints (soft and hard), watchpoints, loading to Flash, etc, are all supported.
In future update we plan to add support for additional families of ARM micro controllers from other manufacturers such as the STM32 range from ST Microelectronics.
Right now development continues a-pace on the ARM firmware and it should be ready real soon now. Watch this space!
We are pleased to announce the availability of a firmware update which adds uPDI support to wAVR. In conjunction with the latest changes to avrdude with some additional patches, you can now program the new AtTiny devices which use the uPDI protocol.
Please check the downloads page for details.
After a week or so of coding, the firmware changes to support programming the latest range of ATTiny CPUs using the uPDI protocol are almost ready for prime time.
Also nearly ready is a patch for avrdude to add support for uPDI over jtagMKII.
There’s just one small remaining hurdle to overcome – the target’s fuses are proving troublesome to write – but I’m sure this will be sorted soon.
The good news is that uPDI support will be offered as a free firmware update to existing owners. If your uPDI target’s programming header conforms to the recommended 6-pin header pinout then wAVR should Just Work with the supplied ribbon cable.
As hinted at in the previous post, a firmware update for wAVR has now been released. This is a minor update which improves performance of the PDI (XMega) programmer – wAVR now supports PDI clock rates up to 10 MHz.
The update is available here. The MD5 hash of the ZIP file is:
MD5 (wAVR-1.0.1.zip) = 0a33a329329953680999ca60dd7078f6
Instructions for updating firmware are provided in the ReadMe.txt file included in the update. As usual, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any problems updating your device.
So wAVR seems to be garnering some interest now and sales are beginning to pick up, which is great! Firmware development continues, although not much progress on ARM support as I’m undecided whether to go down the OpenOCD path or to do everything on-board. The latter will mean the firmware would need to have all the parameters for all the supported ARM CPUs “built-in”. Some more thought required I think.
In other news, prompted by a comment on AVR Freaks, I’ve been working on UPDI support. This is the one-wire interface/protocol used by the newest ATTiny range. The good news is that wAVR’s hardware can support it with just a firmware update. In addition, it’s given me a reason to revisit the low-level PDI physical layer code so that it can support both PDI and UPDI. The current firmware doesn’t cope well with PDI clock rates much above the default of 1MHz. However as part of the refactoring I’ve added DMA support for PDI data transfers. This allows wAVR to program XMega devices with PDI clock rates as high as 10MHz. The limiting factor, from a performance point of view, is now the turnaround time of the PDI line. Adding UPDI will require some patches to avrdude to extend its existing UPDI code so that it can be used via the jtagmkII (Dragon) protocol. I have this mostly done already.
I will likely back-port the PDI DMA support (minus the UPDI code sadly) into the currently shipping version 1.0 firmware over the next week or two so keep an eye out for news of an update!