STM32_HID_bootloader

Notice

This software is experimental and a work in progress. Under no circumstances should these files be used in relation to any critical system(s). Use of these files is at your own risk.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Summary

This is a driverless (no USB drivers needed, even on Windows) USB HID bootloader for STM32F10x and STM32F4xx devices.

It doesn't use ST libraries since they are bloated and buggy. Only CMSIS and some required system files and macros have been used from ST provided SDK.

This allowed for a very small bootloader 4 KB 2 KB on STM32F10x devices. On STM32F4xx devices there is no point to make the bootloader much smaller than 16 KB because the first flash page is already 16 KB.

This repo is based on bootsector's stm32-hid-bootloader repository but is customized to follows the Arduino_Core_STM32 Core requirements. The source files (Bootloader and CLI) can be compiled on Windows, Linux or Mac.

For your convenience, you can find here the hid-flash tool for these three platforms and the F1 and F4 firmware binaries.

Installing the HID bootloader to STM32 devices

(ST-Link version)

1. Download the latest HID Bootloader release
2. Download the texane stlink according to your operating system (Windows, MacOSX, Linux)
3. Extract the texane stlink to your hard disk. You will need the file st-flash (it is into the bin folder).
4. Copy into that folder the HID Bootloader file (xxx.bin) according to your board. e.g. hid_generic_pc13.bin file is for BluePill board, hid_maple_mini.bin is for Maple Mini board etc. The on-board LED is connectet to the PC13 pin.
5. Connect BOOT-0 and BOOT-1 pins (or on-board jumpers) to GND ('0' on BluePill board)
6. Type on Windows CMD (or Linux terminal) st-flash.exe write hid_generic_pc13.bin 0x8000000 for programming the HID Bootloader firmware to a BluePill board.
7. Apply the Arduino_STM32_patch from here in case of using Roger's Core (select the zip file according to your Operating System).
8. Select from Arduino IDE Tools > Board > [your_stm32_board]
9. Select Tools > Upload method > HID Bootloader 2.1 or newer
10. You are ready !

Normally, both BOOT-0 and BOOT-1 must be connected to '0'. If you connect BOOT-1 pin to 3.3V (or '1' on BluePill boards), the board will stay in HID Bootloader mode.

(Serial Dongle version)

1. Download the latest HID Bootloader release
2. Download the stm32flash from Roger's Clark Github repo.
3. Extract the stm32flash to your hard disk.
4. Copy into that folder the HID Bootloader file (xxx.bin) according to your board. e.g. hid_generic_pc13.bin file is for BluePill board, hid_maple_mini.bin is for Maple Mini board etc The on-board LED is connectet to the PC13 pin.
5. Set BOOT-0 pin to '1' (3.3V) and reset the board
6. Type on Windows CMD (or Linux terminal) stm32flash.exe -g 0x8000000 -b 115200 -w hid_generic_pc13.bin COM2 or stm32flash -g 0x8000000 -b 115200 -w hid_generic_pc13.bin /dev/ttyS0 for programming the HID Bootloader firmware to a BluePill board.
7. Apply the Arduino_STM32_patch from here in case of using Roger's Core (select the zip file according to your Operating System).
8. Select from Arduino IDE Tools > Board > [your_stm32_board]
9. Select Tools > Upload method > HID Bootloader 2.1 or newer
10. You are ready !

CLI folder

cli folder contains the source code for creating the command line tool hid-flash tool. This bootloader should't have any compiler restrictions, so it should work with any GCC ARM toolchain version (latest is always recommended!). Just run 'make' on that folder.

The hid-flash binary tool (executable) is also included in the latest HID Bootloader release

Linux udev setup:

To use the HID bootloader without root permissions the following udev rule needs to be installed to the /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stm32_hid_bl.rules

# STM32_HID_bootloader
ATTRS{idProduct}=="beba", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1209", MODE:="666" 

You might need to reboot or run udevadm control --reload-rules and replug your device to use it as a normal user after installing.

Windows examples:

[YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\cli>make clean Clears the previous generated files [YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\cli>make Creates the hid-flash.exe file

Bootloader folder

bootloader folder contains the source code for creating the hid_bootloader.bin file that is burned into the STM32F103 flash memory. Currently, only STM32F103 MCU is supported. Making the hid_bootloader.bin

Examples:

STM32F10x

[YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F1>make clean Clears the previous generated files [YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F1>make generic-pc13 Creates the hid_bootloader.bin file, assigning the LED to pin PC13. Edit the make_all.bat file to see all supported pin options.

If you want to use a High Density Device such as *STM32F103RCT6, then you have to add an extra argument to the make command.

Example: [YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F1>make generic-pd2 PAGE_SIZE=2048 Creates the hid_bootloader.bin file, assigning the LED to pin PD2. Edit the make_all_hd.bat file to see all supported pin options.

STM32F4xx

[YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F4>make clean Clears the previous generated files [YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F4>make Creates the hid_bootloader.bin file

After compiling, the binary file can be found in:

[YOUR_HDD_PATH]\STM32_HID_bootloader\bootloader\F4\build\hid_bootloader.bin

Screenshot