Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

[SysGhost]

There's this laptop that needs a new EC chip (IT8227E-256). I can buy these on Ali Express. But those would come unflashed/empty. Before I venture into this replacement, I need to dump the firmware of the original EC, and flash that onto a new EC.
But I can't find any information at all on those.

Do anyone out there have any pinout/schematics on these chips, and what one needs to dump and flash those?

Maybe there's a JTAG or something similar I might have missed.

The computer in question is a Lenovo E14 Gen2 (Quite new on the market)
Pictures on the motherboard are attached. (See motherboard_back.jpg, middle left, for the chip in question. It's the QFP128 package with the big "Lenovo" print.)

[m.maher]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

can this help?

[mon2]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

Not to be Debbie Downer but if this EC is not working, what are the chances the firmware can be extracted over JTAG ? I suppose it is still worth a try.

No experience with this area yet but thought @SMDFlea or another tech noted that the EC firmware is often inside the host BIOS. If true, would the bios not reflash this firmware onto the virgin IC ? Or can the EC firmware be extracted out of the BIOS dump ?

Update - see attached portion of the pinout - thanks @m.maher!!

From what I can gather, this EC is a SPI BUS MASTER. Respectively, the firmware is stored on an EXTERNAL SPI FLASH device. The CS pin is driven by this EC.

Based on the direction of the arrows on the SPI pins, this EC device is the MASTER and there must be an external SPI flash that offers the firmware.

Can you confirm this detail ? If this assumption is correct then you can solder in a 'blank' IC which then should fetch the firmware from the external SPI flash device which is still onboard.

[tahc81]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

Hi all, any update here? Many laptop BIOSes include EC image, but question is how the EC should know, where it is located? Always same base address? Decoding UEFI layout?

[Antonynl]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

From what I now understand the kbc fetches the bios image of the kbc from the Winbond chip via spi. I do have a NM-B911 with the same IT8227 kbc that shows no clock.

[jamesp]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

@Antonynl
we have same scenario but for me, in a different mainboard and EC. my EC is a microchip MEC1310-NU and no spi clock measured upon insertion of VDC from power adapter....its was confirmed by checking with my cheap DSO rigol ds1054z, and no MOSI and MISO decoding happens

[vgecas]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

Hi,
Many of these new IO chips have integrated flash memory, that can be accessed via keyboard connector. One could use this device:

https://ioprogrammer.com/

[lpraderi]

Re: Need some advice on IT8227E-256 Embedded Controller (EC))

@SysGhost

View this trying to fix a NM-D151 with no POST/Display.

ITE IT8227E on NM-D151 autoprogram itself if internal flash is empty from ECROM image embed on BIOS.

Checked myself dumping, erasing and program an empty image (all 0xFF) with KBC programmer and dumping again after reboot.

Contents are exact the same as EC image on lenovo bios dump at offset 0x2C8000 lenght 0x20000 (128k).

Checked also on Bios downloaded from Lenovo website (Bios.cap extracted from e8cn39ww.exe) and the EC rom image is present at different offset but same lenght/content.

I know maybe is late for you but may help someone else.