Applications that use large bitmap images or multiple page menu screens, which require several images or large or multiple font packages, etc., have a very large memory requirement for their graphics resources. In such applications, storing these graphics resources on-chip may result in insufficient memory or may be prohibitive to a possible cost benefit. A solution is to store the graphics resources to off-chip memory, such as non-volatile memory, thereby preserving the on-chip memory for program memory and allowing for more complex functional features. 

The application aria_external_resources in MPLAB Harmony needs to use preloaded images/fonts from SQI flash external non-volatile memory. This would require aria_flash to flash the required image and font resources onto the SQI flash. Refer to aria_external_resources for usage model information. 

The aria_flash application flashes the .hex file containing the binary data of the external graphics resources, in this case SQI.hex, into the external non-volatile memory. The resource file is copied from the computer to a USB Flash drive or SD card, which has a FAT32 file system installed. The USB Flash drive/SD card is then plugged into the MEB II development board and the application scans the MSD for the resource file. The aria_flash application copies the resource file sector by sector and flashes the binary resource content onto the SQI Flash external memory.