Configuration of UFO board

Hello,
I have a SCAPACK-L1 (so a chipwhisperer lite, a UFO board and some targets) and I try to follow the first notebook “Connecting to Hardware.ipynb” from GitHub - newaetech/chipwhisperer-jupyter: Interactive ChipWhisperer tutorials using Jupyter notebooks. , I’ve changed the target (from xmega ufo target to stm32f303 ufo target as this target is advised), but I have some problems on part “UFO Target Settings”: for me, the photo doesn’t correspond to the “UFO Default Settings” below (probably because they change anything in this case?), and I don’t fully understand the interest of each button/jumper (even after reading CW308 UFO - NewAE Hardware Product Documentation ), so I have some questions:

  • Is it the same configuration with all the UFO targets?
  • Can you confirm what I’ve understood after?
  • chipwhisperer supplies the UFO board with 3.3 and 5V, but we can also supply the UFO board with 5V (use of header and 5V DC power jack)
  • the UFO board supplies the target using LDO (to decrease voltage and have 1.2V, 1.8V, 2.5V, or 3.3V), or with an adjustable voltage if needed voltage is different from previous.
  • I don’t understand the interest of J4
  • J14 permits that the board ask for a voltage? (seems curious…)
  • the column of 7 buttons (4 LDO, 5V SRC, 3.3V SRC, VADJ SRC) permit to choose the source of voltage to supply the target, so jack or header for each fixed/variable voltage.
    In fact, I’m just afraid of burning something…
    Also, if you have some resources (books, videos, …) about electronics hacking, I’m interested :slight_smile:
    Regards,

Nuliel

Hi Nuliel,

That’s mostly correct, except that the ChipWhisperer-Lite only supplies 3.3V. In that case, the typical configuration is to connect the 3.3V to the target directly by setting 3.3V SRC to J1/CW. If only 3.3V is available to the board, 2.5V will be unavailable, though I don’t think any of our targets use this voltage.

J4 selects what voltage is fed back to the ChipWhisperer to use as a, I/O voltage reference. AFAIK, all ChipWhisperer targets use 3.3V as the I/O reference voltage, so both options should mostly behave the same.

The target board routes the voltages from the CW308 board, so you should be okay in most cases. The XMega and F3 only use the 3.3V input, so unless you’re taking wires and trying to route the voltage input yourself, you won’t damage the target.

Other targets may use multiple input voltages, so you might run into issues if only some of the input voltages are powered. If you’re not using the STM32F3 or the XMega and want to be extra careful, ensure that the 1.2V, 1.8V, and 3.3V inputs are on before plugging in your target. That being said, I’ve probably made that mistake myself and haven’t run into any issues, so I wouldn’t worry too much.

If you’re looking for settings for the input voltages, I’d recommend the following:

  • 3.3V SRC set to J1/CW
  • 1.2V LDO SRC set to J1/CW
  • 1.8V LDO SRC set to J1/CW
  • J14 jumpered between the left and center pins
  • No jumper on J16

Hope that helps,

Alex

Ok, it is clearer. I will do the courses (sca101) with the STM32F3 for the moment to avoid problems with multiple input voltage. Thank you!