Skip to content
Jonathan Neuschäfer edited this page Nov 28, 2020 · 5 revisions

The Novatek NT72563 is an SoC specifically designed for use in TVs, such as the Vestel MB211S platform.

A list of features is included in the Vestel 17MB211S service manual. Some of the highlights include:

  • 8051 stand-by controller
  • dual Cortex-A9 application processor
  • lots of video processing hardware
  • Mali 400
NO
SPI ID:0xEF4015

SPI type:0x01
Spi Su2:0x02
Read back data from SPI....
P:0000
B:10
sysidx:0001
Pwr on:01

RstCode:00000000

PowerOnEvent: 0x02

(Text printed on the serial port when power is applied to an MB211S mainboard)

Boot flow

  • Something, presumably the STBC's bootrom code, prints NO on the serial port
  • 8051 code begins at address 0x0000, jumps to 0x0086, clears internal RAM
  • The main function runs through
  • At some point the application processor is started
  • The application processor presumably loads a bootloader/OS from NAND flash

Stand-by Controller (STBC)

A central feature of the SoC is the "stand-by controller", an 8051-based processor that performs I/O and manages the system while the application processor if off.

Memory layout (incomplete)

space begin end description
code 0000 ?fff flash @ 0x0000
code a000 cfff flash @ 0x6000
extern 0000 ???? RAM, preloaded with flash @ 0x0000
extern f000 ffff MMIO registers

Reading from code space (movc) is broken: It reads the same bytes that can be found in external space (movx), even though there are addresses which contain code (e.g. b3e5), but instead are in the middle of ASCII strings.