FAQ: Why do flash contents appear corrupt/incorrect within Memory Window

Q:

When viewing Flash contents using the Memory Window, I see incorrect values, and duplicates of the expected values. How can I use the Memory Window to view the contents of Flash.

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A:

If the flash is not a Parallel type, or is connected to the bus in some non-conventional way, such as SPI, PPI or Link Port Interface, then you cannot use the Memory Window to view the contents of the Flash. All reads/writes to this type of flash should be done using a suitable interface application (such as a Flash Programmer Driver).

If the flash is a parallel type flash connected to the ASYNC bus, you should be able to use the Memory window to view its contents. However, due to timing and other considerations when accessing flash, you may experience incorrect data, or repeated data in the memory window when viewing Parallel Flash locations.

This is caused by the optimized techniques the Emulator uses to access memory when reading from the target, some of which are incompatible with the access requirements of flash. For Blackfin processors, you can avoid these problems by enabling the option "Do Single Byte Memory Access" under 'Settings:Target Options' within the IDDE.

Note: Enabling this option disables many of the Emulator's optimized access, and will cause the load time of your DXE to increase significantly. For this reason, we recommend disabling 'Do single byte memory access' for general operation, and enable it only when you need to examine the contents of the Flash.