Steps to Build MCUboot Application with IAR Workbench

A typical MCUboot application consists of MCUboot project, and a primary Application and secondary image for the update.  When MCUboot project is created, a Flash layout .bld file is generated by FSP Code generator based on the MCUboot stack configuration as below. The generated .bld file is added in the debug\exe folder of the project.

In e2Studio IDE, a tooling is included in which an application project can pick up the bootloader project flash layout settings from .bld file. However, for IAR workbench manual work is needed to pick up the bootloader project flash layout settings. This requires modifying the memory mapping file “memory_regions.icf” file for the application project manually. However, when the code is build, FSP code generator is invoked which overwrites the “memory_regions.icf file. Hence, it is must to change the file property to read only after modification to avoid over writing the file when code is regenerated.

Here is an example of the .bld file from RA6M3 MCUboot project and then corresponding modification in memory_regions.icf file which includes adding the Flash image start and end location.

Please be aware that if the memory_regions.icf file is set to read-only and you attempt to build the project in IAR Workbench, you will encounter a "Usage Error" pop window stating "Error generating project content" as shown below. This issue occurs because the RA Smart Configurator (RASC) cannot overwrite the memory_regions.icf file. The error message is not related to any issues with the application project. To resolve this error, close the "Usage Error" window, which will allow the build process to continue and complete the remaining build operation. If project has any issues, the error message will be shown in the "Build" output window of the IDE.