softICE Functionality and recovery problem

[mihir]

Good Day All,

I wanted to reset the serial number of P89V51RD2 and i pressed the "Enable softICE" by mistake and as a result i am unable to program the chip.(which had never came up with any warning that it will be problematic to recover from this mode) reason being to it is always in softICE mode. I have already gone through the form to search the answer for this Mr. Jan Waclawek, the procedure is 3 page and time consuming(The solution is much appreciated but some steps are tricky and complex ( lifting p3.4 is not easy in some case when it comes to RF application and the micro processor is shielded ).

I have already seen this problem has been faced from many people and the form is full of same question and same answer on this topic. although there is no straight forward answer.

There are two very easy solution to this. First is Flash magic come up with any warning message regarding this and people know what they are doing and softICE bit is not turned on by mistake. Second NXP is not coming up with a simple and straight forward solution to this problem.

There is no documentation available even about the softICE mode in the P89V51RD2 what it should do and how it is useful, It just says how the chip can go in this mode.

If I am missing some thing (If there is a easy solution available) then please let me know.

Thanks
Mihir Patel.

[Jan Waclawek]

Mihir,

I don't remember I said anything about lifting p3.4 in the http://www.efton.sk/t0t1/unsoftice.htm description. I admit it's not trivial, but not that complicated, either.

Philips/NXP is aware of the problem and the version 5 of the bootloader solves this (as does the newest version 7, available only on Flashmagic site). However, it does seem they still ship the microcontrollers with version 4 of the bootloader.

JW