Flashing and the Board¶

Flash. After you select the application and build it, click Flash (Cmd+Alt+U / Ctrl+Alt+U).

You should see: the Output panel switches to IPRO Flash and shows the IntelProCube flashing progress; the last line is [All Success]. A notification says "Flashed <application> in N s."

The monitor closes and reopens. Before flashing, the IDE automatically closes every serial monitor (one port cannot be used by two programs at the same time). With Build, Flash and Monitor, the monitor opens again after a successful flash.

Open the partition table. Right-click the application and choose Partition Table (or click Partition table under Tools on IPRO Home).

You should see: "Partition table of <application>". Flash with shows the partition table this flash uses (by default, the one IntelProCube picks from the flash size in .config); next to it are the flash size set in .config and the firmware size. When the IDE knows the board's flash, it adds a comparison line, for example "The board on this probe has 2 MB of flash (Winbond EF4015); ipro_unit_test is set to 1 MB." Below that are the flash map (one row each for slot A and slot B), the address and size of every partition, and the share of the FW partition that the firmware takes.

Read the check results below the table.

You should see: when there is no problem, nothing is listed. When there is a problem, it is explained, for example: mfg and FW of the 1M partition table share the same space (writing an AI model overwrites the firmware), FW slot B of the 2M partition table overlaps mfg (an OTA update overwrites the AI model), or the firmware is larger than slot A.

Use the application's own table. When the application ships its own partition table, the page says "This application ships …". Select it in Flash with, and every later flash of this application uses it.

Compare with the board. With the serial monitor open, click Reset Board.

You should see: On the board compares against the partition table the board prints at boot and marks each partition "same", "differs" or "not on the board". When they all match, it shows "The board printed the same table at its last boot."

Choose the model. Right-click the application and choose AI Model… (or click AI model under Tools on IPRO Home). In Model, choose an .inm in the application folder, or click Browse… to choose another file.

You should see: the model's size, format version and number of layers, input, NPU and CPU instructions and weight sizes, the memory it takes once loaded (model plus work buffer, against the 8 MB PSRAM), and the mfg partition it goes into. The last line says "The model fits this application and its partition table." or why it does not fit.

Write it. If it fits, click Write to mfg.

You should see: a notification says "Wrote … to the mfg partition in N s." Only the model is written; the firmware is untouched.

Watch it on the board. While the board runs the model (with the serial monitor open), On the board shows whether each layer runs on the NPU or the CPU. When the firmware is built with CONFIG_AI_CYCLE_PROFILE=y and calls iproai_cycle_report(), it also shows the time per inference and how busy the NPU and the CPU are.

Connect the probe and the board. Connect the IPRO Debug Probe to the computer with the USB cable, and then connect the probe to the IPRO6S EVK.

You should see: IPRO Debug Probe and its two ports, UART and CCI, appear under Board in the side bar.

Select the application. Under Applications in the side bar, click ipro6_demo (in the platform category; you can type ipro6 in the search box).

You should see: the toolbar shows ipro6_demo and the board changes to IPRO6S EVK by itself; the chip label under Board in the side bar is IPRO6S. The board follows the application's chip, so you do not choose it yourself.

Select the port when two boards are connected. With two boards connected at the same time (for example a Reef and an IPRO6S EVK, each on its own probe), click the board name on the toolbar, choose Select Port… and pick the UART of the probe on the IPRO6S EVK. With one board you can skip this step.

Build, flash and monitor. Click Build, Flash and Monitor (Cmd+Alt+R / Ctrl+Alt+R).

You should see, in this order:

1. IPRO Build compiles up to [100%] Built target ipro6_demo_IPRO6.elf.
2. The first line of IPRO Flash is "Partition table: …/chips/ipro6/partition/partition_cfg_fw_direct.toml"; the command after it has --chipname ipro6 --chip-variant IPRO6S and --pt …/partition_cfg_fw_direct.toml; the last line is [All Success].
3. IPRO Monitor opens, the board restarts, and the output ends with Init Shell (RT-Thread FinSH based) and the prompt ipro />.

List the board's commands. Type help in the monitor and press Enter.

You should see: the board lists its commands, among them the Wi-Fi commands (stack_wifi, wifi_sta_connect, wifi_ap_start) and iperf. Wi-Fi Throughput (iperf) in Testing and Measurement uses these commands.

Start a new application. Click + (New Application…) above the Applications list.

Fill in the form. Under Start from, choose Hello World for a board; under Board, choose IPRO6S EVK; enter my_wifi_app as the name and click Create.

You should see: the list has a new user/my_wifi_app, the board on the toolbar is IPRO6S EVK, and the editor opens its main.c.

Run it. Click Build, Flash and Monitor.

You should see: Hello from my_wifi_app appears in IPRO Monitor.