Command-line tool introduced for target device configuration

SEGGER has announced the Device Provisioner for its Flasher family of in-circuit programmers and its J-Link and J-Trace family of market-leading debug and trace probes.

Modern chips need an increasing level of customer- and device-specific configuration. The driving force is security, particularly as more and more devices connect to the Internet. Unfortunately, there is no industry standard for provisioning device security and configuration. Options differ from one silicon vendor to the next, even from device to device, and they keep evolving, making a flexible tool necessary.

The solution is a command-line tool that provides the utmost flexibility, allowing users to customise their own device provisioning, including (but not limited to) conditioning, programming (including special areas), downloading certificates, serial number assignment, locking and unlocking, security activation, and TrustZone/partitioning configuration. Users can also enable or disable debugging, set fuses, program option bytes and flash, or anything else the target needs.

“The Device Provisioner is a masterpiece of software engineering,” says Rolf Segger, founder of SEGGER. “It can do anything that any device needs done. It has a built-in C compiler and full access to all interfaces and all functions offered by J-Link and Flasher, including fully user-programmable interface coprocessors to cover existing and any future on-the-wire protocols. With all this, I think it might be the most universal tool in the history of embedded systems. I am extremely proud of our engineers – they’ve really outdone themselves on this one.”

The solution executes commands from a script written in the C language that can be provided by the company, the silicon vendor, or written by the users themselves.

The solution comes as part of the software package for both the J-Link and Flasher family of products. Script files can be executed on J-Links and Flasher while connected to a host PC, as well as executed by Flasher in stand-alone mode. Script files can be distributed in source code or in pre-compiled form to protect the IP.