LPCXpresso LPC1769 - is it possible to put own firmware to the LPC3154 in the LPC-Link part?

An interesting idea, but doesn't appear to be possible:

I'm afraid you are right... Quick inspection of the board and its schematic layout leads to assumption that the JTAG pins are available (9 undocumented pads on the lower edge of the LPC-Link board are probably connectors to the "breakout section LPC3154-JTAG", however the order of pins is probably changed, as most left is GND and most right is Vcc). The question is however if the JTAG is still left enabled... Probably not.

So it seems, that the most effective solution to work with the target part of LPCXpresso LPC1769 is simply to remove the LPC-Link part and attach any other not vendor-locked JTAG dongle... (e.g.

Rowley tried to go in through the front door to get an official sanction from NXP to use that interface. No joy. See

I suppose that if one had enough tools and enough time then reverse engineering the protocol would be possible. However, given the large number of existing JTAG options, including some that are quite inexpensive, doing so would only be for the benefit of getting "hacker cred" for the effort.

If I were a developer of this solution I'd provide full encryption in the USB layer also. LPC1354 is powerful enough to handle encrypted data stream. So probably even analysis of the USB protocol will not give any results.

The only way would be to find the 128-bit AES key and encrypt own firmware with it. Quite interesting if the method used to transfer the firmware is resistant to plaintext cryptoanalysis, as probably the header of the firmware is quite predictable ;-). OK. I have no time to go further with that...

Well, I've simply cut off the LPC-Link, soldering a male gold-pin connector to the target board and a female gold-pin connector to the LPC-Link. So I can still quickly connect the LPC-Link if one of my students is going to use the closed Code Red solution, while another open JTAG controller may be connected for everyday use with OpenOCD.

It's funny that the LPC3154 on the board is much more powerful than the LPC1769, and it's only being used as a JTAG interface.

I'd love to have a freely accessible LPC3154-only board for the price of the LPCexpresso.

And that's probably why it is sold in such "closed" state... From NXP point of view it is a way to promote LPC1769 without disturbing market for LPC3154 ;-). The LPC3152 (like 3154 but without AES protection) kit costs 179=80

-- Regards, WZab