spiflash

A database of SPI flash chips — JEDEC ids, part names, sizes, page and sector sizes, erase opcodes and block layouts, supply voltages and capabilities — merged from the flash tables of every project that keeps one:

Together that is 778 distinct chip ids (651 SPI NOR, 127 SPI NAND) from 37 manufacturers, 459 of them described by more than one source, plus the full JEP106 manufacturer list. Every entry keeps the upstream file and line it came from, and where the sources disagree (60 ids do) both answers are kept.

spiflash sources (or spiflash.sources()) names the exact upstream commits the shipped data was extracted from.

Browse it at https://spiflash.readthedocs.io/: a page per vendor with a table of all its parts, and a page per chip.

Install

pip install spiflash          # or: uv tool install spiflash

It has no dependencies. Or, as a Debian package, from the signed apt repository at https://mith.ro/spiflash/. There is one per suite (bookworm, trixie, forky and sid), and the package is Architecture: all, so it installs on any architecture. Put your suite's name in place of trixie below (Raspberry Pi OS uses Debian's codenames):

sudo install -d -m0755 /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://mith.ro/spiflash/spiflash.gpg | sudo tee /etc/apt/keyrings/spiflash.gpg > /dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/spiflash.gpg] https://mith.ro/spiflash/trixie/ ./" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spiflash.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-spiflash      # provides the spiflash command

The repository's signing key is B528 6C61 A99A 9E6A 5B8A 8E5B 6B2D 7683 DE01 081D (gpg --show-keys /etc/apt/keyrings/spiflash.gpg shows it).

The command

What answered 9f with ef 40 18?

$ spiflash id ef4018
ef4018  Winbond  W25Q128, W25Q128.V, W25Q128FV, W25Q128JV  (nor)
    size 16 MiB, page 256 B, sector 64 KiB, 2.7-3.6 V
    features: dual_read erase_32k erase_4k erase_64k fast_read lock otp quad_read sfdp
    from: flashrom, flashprog, linux, u-boot, openocd, openfpgaloader

-v lists every upstream entry with its file and line, --json prints it all as JSON. Bytes after the three-byte id narrow the answer: a Spansion S25FL128S answers 01 20 18 4d 01 80, and spiflash id '01 20 18 4d 01 80' drops the variants with other extended ids. A leading 7f continuation code is optional (1c7018 and 7f1c7018 are both an Eon EN25QH128).

What does a part answer?

$ spiflash find gd25q64
c84017  GigaDevice  GD25Q64, GD25Q64C  (nor)
    size 8 MiB, page 256 B, sector 64 KiB, 2.7-3.6 V
    ...

A family (w25q128), a part (W25Q128JV) or a full order code (S25FL128SAGMFI001) all work; flashrom's . wildcards (W25Q128.V) are understood.

Which opcodes does a part support?

$ spiflash opcodes W25Q128JV           # or by id: spiflash opcodes ef4018
ef4018  Winbond  W25Q128, W25Q128.V, W25Q128FV, W25Q128JV  (nor)
    0x9f  RDID             Read JEDEC id  [flashrom, flashprog, linux, u-boot, openocd, openfpgaloader]
    0x5a  RDSFDP           Read SFDP (JESD216) parameters  [flashrom, flashprog]
    0x03  READ_1_1_1       Read data (low frequency)  [flashrom, flashprog, linux, u-boot, openocd, openfpgaloader]
    0x0b  READ_1_1_1_FAST  Fast read  [flashprog, linux, u-boot]
    0x3b  READ_1_1_2       Dual output fast read  [flashprog, linux, u-boot]
    0xbb  READ_1_2_2       Dual I/O fast read  [flashprog]
    0x6b  READ_1_1_4       Quad output fast read  [flashprog, linux, u-boot]
    0xeb  READ_1_4_4       Quad I/O fast read  [flashprog, openocd]
    0x02  PP_1_1_1         Page program  [flashrom, flashprog, linux, u-boot, openocd, openfpgaloader]
    0x32  PP_1_1_4         Quad input page program  [u-boot]
    0x20  BE_4K            Erase a 4 KiB sector  [flashrom, flashprog, linux, u-boot, openfpgaloader]
    ...

-v says why each source lists each one (SPI_NOR_QUAD_READ, FEATURE_FAST_READ_QIO, OpenOCD's qread_cmd, ...); spiflash id --opcodes adds the table to the usual description. See Opcodes for what the list does and does not promise.

spiflash list --manufacturer winbond     # every Winbond id
spiflash list --type nand
spiflash id --method res1 10             # a legacy RES signature byte (M25P10)
spiflash jep106 7f1c                     # "Eon Silicon Devices"
spiflash sources                         # the upstream commits

The library

import spiflash

(chip,) = spiflash.lookup("ef4018")      # or b"\xef\x40\x18", 0xef4018, [0xef, 0x40, 0x18]
chip.manufacturer                        # 'Winbond'
chip.names                               # ('W25Q128', 'W25Q128.V', 'W25Q128FV', 'W25Q128JV')
chip.size, chip.page_size, chip.sector_size   # (16777216, 256, 65536)
chip.voltage                             # (2700, 3600), in mV
"quad_read" in chip.features             # True
chip.feature_sources("quad_read")        # ('flashprog', 'linux', 'u-boot', 'openocd')
chip.conflicts                           # {} -- or {"page_size": {256: (...), 512: (...)}}

for r in chip.records:                   # every upstream entry, as extracted
    print(r.source, r.name, r.url, r.erasers, r.opcodes, r.flags)

spiflash.find("MX25L12835F")             # by part name, best match first
spiflash.jep106(0xC2)                    # 'Macronix'

A Flash is one chip id, and several parts can share one (a W25Q128BV, FV and JV all answer ef4018), so it lists every name the sources give. Its single values (size, page_size, sector_size, voltage, manufacturer) are what most sources agree on, ties going to flashrom, then flashprog, Linux, U-Boot, OpenOCD and openFPGALoader; values("size") shows who says what. features is everything any source claims, from this list:

The upstream's own flags (SPI_NOR_HAS_TB, FEATURE_WRSR2, ...) are kept on each record's flags for anything this list does not capture.

Opcodes

chip.supports("READ_1_1_4")              # True
op = chip.opcodes["READ_1_4_4"]
op.opcode, op.operation.description      # (235, 'Quad I/O fast read'): 0xeb
op.because                               # (('flashprog', 'FEATURE_FAST_READ_QIO'), ('openocd', 'qread_cmd'))

Operations are named as LiteSPI's SpiNorFlashOpCodes names them (READ_1_1_4: command on 1 line, address on 1, data on 4; _4B for the 4-byte-address form), so a list can be used there directly; spiflash.opcodes.OPERATIONS has them all, with their kind (id, read, program, erase, register, mode) and description.

Each source's list is what that source says, from what it says it:

The opcode values are read from each upstream's own headers (SPINOR_OP_*, JEDEC_*, FLASH_*) and checked against the table when the data is built.

So a listed operation is one some source says the part has. An operation that is not listed may still be supported: no source here describes every opcode of every part, and parts that Linux reads from SFDP get their read, program and erase opcodes from the chip at run time, so Linux lists only its defaults for them. Parts sharing an id can differ too; because says who vouches for what. SPI NAND parts have no opcodes listed.

Updating the data

The data is generated, never edited: tools/sources.toml pins each upstream to a commit, and

uv run tools/update_db.py            # rebuild src/spiflash/data/ from the pins
uv run tools/update_db.py --latest   # move the pins to each upstream's HEAD first

fetches only the files it reads (a sparse, blobless, depth-1 fetch: about 15 MB for Linux) and parses the tables as text. A weekly workflow reports when an upstream table has changed. See docs/DEVELOPING.md for how the extraction works and docs/SOURCES.md for what is taken from where, and under what terms.

Credits

The extraction follows the approach of LiteSPI's spi_nor_config_generator (Antmicro, 2020): the same upstreams, a JSON record per upstream entry, and the handling of OpenOCD's w25q128fv/jv-style names. The parsers are new, as Linux and flashrom have both since changed their table formats. The data itself is the work of the people who maintain those tables.

License

Apache-2.0; see LICENSE and, for the data, docs/SOURCES.md.