SOIC-16 SPI Flash Adapter

Hi, I know there are a few different SPI flash adapters available but they all seem to be for the 8 pin varieties. Are there any plans to do a SOIC-16 version?

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Which chip specifically? Is it still and SPI interface chip, or does it have a bigger parallel interface?

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I’ve got a few different chips. They’re all SPI-NOR

  • ST M25P128 (-MF is the SOIC-16 package)
  • Winbond W25Q128JV (-F)
  • Micron MT25QL128ABA (-SF), I notice this datasheet refers to it as “16-pin SOP2, 300 mil”

All those extra pins are NC/DNU so they don’t really do anything (apart from perhaps help hold the chip down better). I know the bigger package is much easier to work with for those of us with fat fingers.

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Maybe try micro IC clamps approach? Micro hooks

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The 16 pin SPI-NOR flashes often have a dedicated reset pin, while the 8 pin ones have the reset shared with data.

So when you use one of the advanced quad-spi and XIP modes and somehow lose state tracking, it is sometimes not so straightforward to get the flash back into a known state. This is especially problematic when you want to boot from the flash and the chip that is to be booted just has minimal and non-flash-vendor-specific logic to do so. Having a dedicated reset pin makes this more robust. This is one of the reasons I’m aware of why these ICs are used.

I have seen these used on several server mainboards from different manufacturers - HPE, Supermicro, Dell. They are used for storing the BIOS firmware and the management system (iLO, iDrac, …). I guess the robustness thing I mentioned could be a reason for using these there.

For interfacing the BP this all doesn’t matter. It would just need a dedicated SOIC socket with the correct pinout - or the user needs clips or something along those lines.

If you want to play for example with OpenBMC, you probably want some way to connect this kind of flash ic. This is one reason I can think of why having such a socket adapter could be interesting for several BP users.

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Cool let’s do a prototype. I’ll have a look at the data sheets to see what’s going on. Thank you for the additional info! :slight_smile:

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If it helps there are adapters for the FlashCat that you might be able to refer to Embedded Computers

I’ve actually got one (before I found out that the FlashCatUSB didn’t work with Linux) I can hook the connector up to the BP5 with some jumper wires and talk to the chips although it’s a bit fragile with the wires just poked into the bottom of their connector.

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