System Flashing

NE503 initial system flashing, boot-chain recovery, MCU firmware programming, and deployment verification.

1. Prepare Firmware and Host

1.1 Download the Firmware

Download the hailo15-ne503 firmware, BSP, and flashing-tool wheel from meta-hailo-os Releases, then extract them on an Ubuntu host. The wheel is also available in the repository's tools/ directory. All files must come from the same Release.

See the NE503 firmware and deployment guide for the complete file list.

Boot-chain files (used in Section 2):

hailo15_uart_recovery_fw.bin
hailo15_scu_bl.bin
scu_bl_cfg_a.bin
hailo15_scu_fw.bin
u-boot.dtb.signed
u-boot-spl.bin
u-boot-initial-env
customer_certificate.bin
u-boot-tfa.itb

System-image files (used in Section 3):

fitImage
swupdate-image-hailo15-ne503.ext4.gz
hailo-update-image-hailo15-ne503.swu

1.2 Install Tools and Connect the Device

Host: Ubuntu 20.04/22.04. Prepare a 1.8V-compatible USB-to-serial cable, an Ethernet cable, and PoE.

pip install tools/hailo15_board_tools-<VERSION>-py3-none-any.whl
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install u-boot-tools

Connect the debug serial cable and confirm the device node:

ls -lh /dev/serial/by-id/
screen /dev/ttyACM0 115200

The commands use /dev/ttyACM0; replace it with the actual node.

1.3 Configure TFTP

sudo apt update
sudo apt install tftpd-hpa
sudo nano /etc/default/tftpd-hpa

Confirm:

TFTP_USERNAME="tftp"
TFTP_DIRECTORY="/var/lib/tftpboot"
TFTP_ADDRESS="0.0.0.0:69"
TFTP_OPTIONS="--secure"

Copy the system images and restart TFTP:

sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/tftpboot
sudo chown tftp:tftp /var/lib/tftpboot
sudo chmod 755 /var/lib/tftpboot
sudo cp fitImage /var/lib/tftpboot/
sudo cp swupdate-image-hailo15-ne503.ext4.gz /var/lib/tftpboot/
sudo cp hailo-update-image-hailo15-ne503.swu /var/lib/tftpboot/
sudo systemctl restart tftpd-hpa

2. Recover the Boot Chain

Use this section for a new device or when the U-Boot menu is unavailable. If it is available, skip to Section 3.

2.1 Enter UART Recovery Mode

Set BOOT0 to OFF and BOOT1 to ON, power the device through PoE, and press Reset.

2.2 Load the UART Recovery Firmware

uart_boot_fw_loader \
  --serial-device-name /dev/ttyACM0 \
  --firmware ./hailo15_uart_recovery_fw.bin

2.3 Write the SPI Flash Boot Components

hailo15_spi_flash_program \
  --scu-bootloader ./hailo15_scu_bl.bin \
  --scu-bootloader-config ./scu_bl_cfg_a.bin \
  --scu-firmware ./hailo15_scu_fw.bin \
  --uboot-device-tree ./u-boot.dtb.signed \
  --bootloader ./u-boot-spl.bin \
  --bootloader-env ./u-boot-initial-env \
  --customer-certificate ./customer_certificate.bin \
  --uboot-tfa ./u-boot-tfa.itb \
  --uart-load \
  --serial-device-name /dev/ttyACM0

Expected output (excerpt; repeated erase and validation lines are omitted):

UART recovery load firmware and script version: 1.4
flash detected, flash jedec_id: 0x9d701700
Programming SCU firmware file: ./hailo15_scu_fw.bin...
Provided file ./hailo15_scu_fw.bin was successfully programmed
Programming SCU bootloader file: ./hailo15_scu_bl.bin...
Provided file ./hailo15_scu_bl.bin was successfully programmed
Programming SCU bootloader config file...
Provided file ./scu_bl_cfg_a.bin was successfully programmed
Programming U-Boot SPL file: ./u-boot-spl.bin...
Provided file ./u-boot-spl.bin was successfully programmed
Programming U-Boot env file: ./u-boot-initial-env...
Provided file ./u-boot-initial-env was successfully programmed
Programming Customer certificate file: ./customer_certificate.bin...
Provided file ./customer_certificate.bin was successfully programmed
Programming u-boot device-tree file: ./u-boot.dtb.signed...
Provided file ./u-boot.dtb.signed was successfully programmed
Programming U-Boot & TF-A file: ./u-boot-tfa.itb...
Provided file ./u-boot-tfa.itb was successfully programmed

Success: all 8 components show successfully programmed and the command exits with code 0.

After flashing, power off the device, return BOOT0 and BOOT1 to OFF, and power it on again.

3. Flash the System to eMMC

3.1 Enter the U-Boot Menu

1. Connect PoE through RJ45 and power on the device;
2. Set the serial terminal to 115200;
3. During the boot countdown, press ↑ or ↓ to open the U-Boot menu.

3.2 Configure the Network

Connect the Ubuntu TFTP host and the device to the same subnet. The default device IP is 10.0.0.1 and the host IP is 10.0.0.2; for another subnet, select U-Boot console:

setenv ipaddr 192.168.93.XXX
setenv serverip 192.168.93.YYY
saveenv
reset

Set serverip to the IP address of the host running TFTP.

3.3 Write the System Image

After confirming the network settings, select eMMC AB Board Init in the U-Boot menu. If you just ran reset, re-enter the menu as described in Section 3.1. Do not remove power or Ethernet during the write; the device reboots when complete.

4. Log In and Verify

After reboot, log in through the serial console or SSH:

Username: root
Password: root

Change the root password and confirm that the OS has started:

passwd
cat /etc/os-release

The system image does not include the NE503 app. Do not use /data/aipc/VERSION, aipc, or Hailo modules as post-flashing checks.

Success: the password is changed and cat /etc/os-release returns OS information.

After a first-time deployment, choose the MCU programming method in Section 5 based on the device state.

5. Flash the MCU Firmware

Choose based on the device state:

• MCU is not programmed, the device cannot run normally, or OTA is unavailable: flash the HEX with ST-LINK;
• The system boots normally: update the MCU with OTA and the .bin package.

5.1 Flash the HEX File with ST-LINK

Prepare ST-LINK, STM32CubeProgrammer, and device power. Connect ST-LINK to the interface board's ST-LINK/SWD port: connect PA13 to SWDIO and PA14 to SWDCLK/BOOT0. Keep the device in normal boot mode.

Download and use the combined HEX file ne503_Main_v0.1.7_20260723.hex:

ne503_Main_v0.1.7_20260723.hex

Confirm that the host detects ST-LINK and STM32G0B0:

STM32_Programmer_CLI -l
STM32_Programmer_CLI -c port=SWD

Flash and verify:

STM32_Programmer_CLI -c port=swd -e all -w ./ne503_Main_v0.1.7_20260723.hex -v -rst

-e all erases the entire MCU. Confirm the target device and firmware file before running it.

Success: download and verification complete with exit code 0. Disconnect ST-LINK and reboot the device.

5.2 Update a Running Device over OTA

Use OTA only when the system boots normally. Use the ne503_ota_package_v<X.Y.Z>.bin package matching the NeoRuntime Release; do not upload a .hex file to the OTA directory.

1. Download the OTA package ne503_ota_package_v0.1.7.bin to the Ubuntu host;
2. Set the device address and upload the package:

DEVICE_IP="<device-ip>"
OTA_PACKAGE="ne503_ota_package_v0.1.7.bin"

ssh root@"$DEVICE_IP" "mkdir -p /data/aipc/firmware/mcu"
scp "$OTA_PACKAGE" root@"$DEVICE_IP":/data/aipc/firmware/mcu/
ssh root@"$DEVICE_IP" "test -s /data/aipc/firmware/mcu/$OTA_PACKAGE && ls -lh /data/aipc/firmware/mcu/$OTA_PACKAGE"

After the remote file information is displayed, keep power connected and reboot:

ssh root@"$DEVICE_IP" reboot

The SSH connection will close normally. After the device is back online, verify:

ssh root@"$DEVICE_IP" 'journalctl -b -u aipc-mcu-prep.service --no-pager | grep -F "rtc=ok ota=done rc=0"'

Success: the log contains rtc=ok ota=done rc=0.