Over the years, I have created multiple tools that let you work directly with the loader protocols offered by many SoC (system on chip) mask ROMs. Such tools would usually come from the chip vendors themselves and be less flexible, but when open source, tell us how the APIs work, and through reverse engineering, we can understand even more of how the mask ROM code works.

In this talk, I showcase a bunch of tools that I have created with the help of others over the years that now help us with the development and testing of firmware in a fast manner, bypassing the whole procedure of flashing code to storage parts. We will look at the specifics per vendor and chip, what we needed to do to get to where we are now, and finish up with a few demos.