[coreboot] ENE KB3940Q-A1 embedded controller custom firmware

[Youness Alaoui]

>> Sure, you can trust hardware flashing more than software flashing,
>> but
>> I really need software flashing. If it was just for me, yeah, I could
>> fiddle with it to flash it by hardware for my personal needs, but
>> when
>> it's about deploying it to all our customer base, that's another
>> story, the only solution is software flashing. Obviously, it would
>> have to work in coreboot, so whatever coreboot is doing wrong (or AMI
>> is doing right.. my guess is that it's probably something with the EC
>> ACPI code), we'd have to figure that out first in order to get the
>> read/write support.
>
> Either way, since the EC firmware resides in the SPI flash, it'll be no
> issue to reflash it both by software and hardware.

On the librems, the EC firmware resides in a separate 64KB SPI flash,
it's not shared with the bios, and I haven't found a way to access it.
The 'ectool' is able to read it (ram idx reads if i remember
correctly) but it only worked with AMI BIOS. So there will definitely
be some work to be done there. You probably know a lot more about this
already, like what this 'ram idx' is, and why it didn't work in
coreboot, or if it's possible to read/write the flash using this EDI
interface, etc...

>
>> > Latest status update for Origami-EC firmware:
>> > https://www.mail-archive.com/coreboot@coreboot.org/msg50646.html
>>
>> Thanks! Good to see the status update on that.
>
> In order to kickstart the development of the Origami-EC firmware, I am
> designing evaluation boards for both the KB9012 and the KB3930 that
> will expose most of the I/O ports with headers, LEDs, buttons,
> connectors, etc. The design is done with KiCAD and will be released
> under the GPLv3+ as part of the Origami-EC project. I am also preparing
> a debug board to reflash the EC on the G505s from the keyboard
> connector.
>
> There is also ongoing work on the emulator and the SerialICE-like
> library for relatying and tracing I/O on the device via UART. Also,
> note that the emulator can now emulate a virtual console so it's
> already possible to build and interract with the firmware!
>
That's some really great news. A dev board will definitely be useful
for testing/debugging/developing Origami-EC!

> Cheers,
>
> Paul
>
>> > On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 9:47 PM, Youness Alaoui
>> > <kakaroto at kakaroto.homelinux.net> wrote:
>> > > Hi Marty,
>> > >
>> > > Unfortunately, the EC firmware on the Librems is not open and we
>> > > have
>> > > someone working on that aspect, but with everything we have to
>> > > handle,
>> > > I think it's only being done part time.
>> > > We found something similar to you with the private submodule for
>> > > the
>> > > PS/2 module on the OLPC code.
>> > > More specifically :
>> > > http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/openec/2011-January/000158.html
>> > > And http://dev.laptop.org/git/users/rsmith/ec-1.75/tree/?h=3930-A
>> > > 1
>> > >
>> > > I had opened a ticket a while ago here :
>> > > https://tracker.pureos.net/T178 which mentions Origami-EC. I
>> > > don't
>> > > know the status of that project, maybe you can contact the
>> > > developer
>> > > (Paul Kocialkowski) and see where he's at with his development of
>> > > that
>> > > project (which, I need to mention, hasn't been publicly launched
>> > > yet,
>> > > as far as I know) and he might benefit from your help if you are
>> > > interested in doing that.
>> > > The last time we spoke he said :
>> > > "The OLPC code is nowhere close to usable on any other platform.
>> > > Additionally, it is so poorly written that I don't think it is a
>> > > suitable codebase for any future development. On the other hand,
>> > > my
>> > > Origami-EC project (that I will publicly launch soon) should
>> > > provide a
>> > > flexible codebase to add support for new devices."
>> > >
>> > > Note that the tracker ticket above is quite outdated, we know how
>> > > to
>> > > dump the EC (the problem was that it can't be done via hardware
>> > > because the EC is on the same power rail as the 64KB flash chip,
>> > > so
>> > > when we power the flash via hardware, the EC boots and takes
>> > > control
>> > > of the SPI lines) but for some reason, we could only dump it via
>> > > software (using ectool) through the AMI BIOS firmware, with
>> > > coreboot,
>> > > we only get 0xFF returned, I don't believe we had time to
>> > > investigate
>> > > the cause for that.
>> > >
>> > > Sorry for not having any better news for you, but I hope this
>> > > helps a
>> > > little you at least.
>> > >
>> > > Good luck,
>> > > Youness.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Fri, Feb 2, 2018 at 10:17 AM, Marty E. Plummer
>> > > <hanetzer at startmail.com> wrote:
>> > > > Greetings,
>> > > >
>> > > > Currently working on a port for the hp g7-2247us laptop, which
>> > > > features
>> > > > an ene kb3940q ec, which hopefully should be very similar to
>> > > > the kb3930
>> > > > ec, which has a datasheet available to the public in a few
>> > > > places.
>> > > >
>> > > > Said similar ec is used in some OLPC devices, as well as some
>> > > > purism
>> > > > devices, and I was hoping someone in the list would have some
>> > > > contacts
>> > > > with those guys so as to be able to use their ec firmware as a
>> > > > bit of a
>> > > > reference design, but the OLPC ec firmware repo has a 'private'
>> > > > submodule which I cannot access and I simply cannot find a repo
>> > > > for the
>> > > > purism ec firmware to reference.
>> > > >
>> > > > Any assistance you could provide on this matter would be
>> > > > greatly
>> > > > appreciated.
>> > > >
>> > > > Marty E. Plummer
>> > > >
>> > > > --
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>> > >
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>> >
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> --
> Paul Kocialkowski, developer of free digital technology and hardware
> support
>
> Website: https://www.paulk.fr/
> Coding blog: https://code.paulk.fr/
> Git repositories: https://git.paulk.fr/ https://git.code.paulk.fr/
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