Detailed description of the two commonly used hexadecimal file formats for programming UCD3xxx series digital power controllers: X0 and Intel Hex

The following describes how to  embed hex470 and FusionX0ToHex command lines in the CCS compilation environment.

In the CCS (version 3.x) compilation environment, enter the Project menu, then select Build Options, and then click the General tab, and the interface shown in Figure 4 will appear. In the Final build steps, we can enter the following two command lines:

hex470 -x -memwidth 8 .\debug\FB_48V_HS.out

FusionX0ToHex --infile FB_48V_HS.x0 --pflash-checksum calc --export both --format intel –outfile FB_48V_HS.hex

In the first command: -x option means converting .\debug\FB_48V_HS.out into X0 file, -memwidth 8 defines the system memory word width as 8 bits.

In the second command: the input file to be converted is FB_48V_HS.x0, the output file is FB_48V_HS.hex, the check bit of the program flash is calculated, and the program and data flash contents are output at the same time, the format is Intel hexadecimal.

To further understand the X0 and Hex formats, let’s take a look at the specific X0 and Hex files generated by the UCD3xxx hard-switch full-bridge evaluation board software, as shown in Figures 5 and 6.

The first column of Figure 5 starts with a percent sign; the following two columns (one byte) indicate the length of characters in each line except the percent sign, and the maximum number of characters in each line is 0x4E (78); then one column indicates the data type, except for the last line which is 8 (end), the others are all 6 (data); the next two columns are the checksum of the entire line; the address occupies 9 columns, starting with 8, and the following 4 bytes represent the actual address; the address is followed by data. As can be seen from the figure, the address of the program flash memory of the X0 file starts from 0, and there is no checksum of the entire program flash memory. TI burning software and tools mainly use files in the X0 format. The burning software will calculate the checksum of the program flash memory by itself, and then write to the last 4 bytes, so X0 does not need to calculate the checksum of the entire program flash memory.

The first column of Figure 6 is all colons; the following byte refers to the number of bytes of data contained in the entire row; two bytes are offset addresses; one byte refers to the record type; and then there are data of varying bytes. The last byte is the checksum for each row. The first row of Figure 6 specifies the extended address, which is 0x0001; the last row marks the end of the file. In addition, the last 4 bytes of the program flash memory (pink area) are the checksum of the entire program flash memory. If this checksum is incorrect, the program will not jump to the program flash memory for execution.

If you use the burning software (GUI) and tools (USB adapter) provided by TI to burn, you only need files in X0 format; if you use a third-party burner to burn on the production line, you will need files in Hex format. You can generate the required X0 or Hex files according to the introduction in this article.

1． SLUS868D - Digital Power Controllers, Texas Instruments Inc., 2012

2． SPNU118J - ARM Assembly Language Tools v4.9 User's Guide, Texas Instruments Inc., 2011

3． SRecord V1.59- Manipulate EPROM load files, 2012

4． Fusion Digital Power Designer, Texas Instruments Inc., 2012