Production Programming of Flash for FPGAs and MCUs

Op Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:14:55 +0100 schreef rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>:
> [...]
>
> I'm curious why two standards came about.  Was there a problem with
> using the version the company developed?  I'm assuming the industry
> version came first and the JEDEC version came later.  Or is that
> wrong?  It won't be too much trouble to support both, but I don't get
> why both standards exist.

http://xkcd.com/927/



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On Nov 21, 9:10=A0am, "Boudewijn Dijkstra"
<sp4mtr4p.boudew...@indes.com> wrote:
> Op Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:14:55 +0100 schreef rickman <gnu...@gmail.com>:
>
> > [...]
>
> > I'm curious why two standards came about. =A0Was there a problem with
> > using the version the company developed? =A0I'm assuming the industry
> > version came first and the JEDEC version came later. =A0Or is that
> > wrong? =A0It won't be too much trouble to support both, but I don't get
> > why both standards exist.
>
> http://xkcd.com/927/
>
> --
> Gemaakt met Opera's revolutionaire e-mailprogramma: =A0http://www.opera.c=
om/mail/
> (Remove the obvious prefix to reply.)

lol

In article <90ab17f7-1ece-4eb7-b511-bea1a5c38610@
4g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, gnuarm@gmail.com says...
> Someone on Linkedin asked about a stand alone device for programming
> the flash for FPGAs in the field or in a production environment.
> There doesn't seem to be anything currently available like this.
> Looking at the big three manufacturers I see at least two formats for
> the files that might be used.  Xilinx and Lattice use SVF with Xilins
> offering support for a compressed version called... XSVF of course.
> Altera uses JAM.  JAM seems to be a JEDEC standard while SVF appears
> to be a defacto industry standard developed by a company.
> 
> I'm curious why two standards came about.  Was there a problem with
> using the version the company developed?  I'm assuming the industry
> version came first and the JEDEC version came later.  Or is that
> wrong?  It won't be too much trouble to support both, but I don't get
> why both standards exist.
> 
> How do you program production devices?  I know in large facilities
> they pay big bucks for JTAG hardware and software that will work
> across the spectrum including test and diagnosis.  I'm thinking there
> is a market for a more limited device that is just used to program the
> non-volatile memory in embedded systems in an efficient manner for
> production and field upgrades.  Any thoughts?
> 
> Rick
> 

I asked the same question on here, a few years ago, and most of the 
answers that came back were along the lines of "why would you want to do 
that?".  As you say, there doesn't seem to be any stand-alone device 
available.
As our product is based on an embedded PC with a parallel port, we built 
a copy of the Altera ByteBlaster on our last board (basically a 74HC244 
and a few other parts), and used the reference code from Altera to do 
the programming.
Others have mentioned using a bootloader in the FPGA code, and using 
this to do the re-programming.  I'm wary of doing this as there is no 
way AFAIK to separate the bootloader functionality from the rest of the 
code in the EEPROM bitstream and only erase / re-program the sectors 
needed, so if there is a power failure in the middle of the update the 
user has a bricked machine.
We are currently moving to a platform which has no parallel port and 
trying to get the Altera JTAG JAM player working, using a PIC18F4550 
(which was on the board anyway and has a few spare pins) as a bit-banged 
controller, with the JAM file downloaded from the PC via UART.  I'll let 
you know if we ever get it working...

In summary, if you want a standalone JTAG Flash programmer,  you'll 
probably have to make your own.  We may end up doing this ourselves, but 
it's not a high-priority project at the moment.

On Nov 24, 9:27=A0am, <n...@rblack01.plus.com> wrote:
> In article <90ab17f7-1ece-4eb7-b511-bea1a5c38610@
> 4g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, gnu...@gmail.com says...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Someone on Linkedin asked about a stand alone device for programming
> > the flash for FPGAs in the field or in a production environment.
> > There doesn't seem to be anything currently available like this.
> > Looking at the big three manufacturers I see at least two formats for
> > the files that might be used. =A0Xilinx and Lattice use SVF with Xilins
> > offering support for a compressed version called... XSVF of course.
> > Altera uses JAM. =A0JAM seems to be a JEDEC standard while SVF appears
> > to be a defacto industry standard developed by a company.
>
> > I'm curious why two standards came about. =A0Was there a problem with
> > using the version the company developed? =A0I'm assuming the industry
> > version came first and the JEDEC version came later. =A0Or is that
> > wrong? =A0It won't be too much trouble to support both, but I don't get
> > why both standards exist.
>
> > How do you program production devices? =A0I know in large facilities
> > they pay big bucks for JTAG hardware and software that will work
> > across the spectrum including test and diagnosis. =A0I'm thinking there
> > is a market for a more limited device that is just used to program the
> > non-volatile memory in embedded systems in an efficient manner for
> > production and field upgrades. =A0Any thoughts?
>
> > Rick
>
> I asked the same question on here, a few years ago, and most of the
> answers that came back were along the lines of "why would you want to do
> that?". =A0As you say, there doesn't seem to be any stand-alone device
> available.
> As our product is based on an embedded PC with a parallel port, we built
> a copy of the Altera ByteBlaster on our last board (basically a 74HC244
> and a few other parts), and used the reference code from Altera to do
> the programming.
> Others have mentioned using a bootloader in the FPGA code, and using
> this to do the re-programming. =A0I'm wary of doing this as there is no
> way AFAIK to separate the bootloader functionality from the rest of the
> code in the EEPROM bitstream and only erase / re-program the sectors
> needed, so if there is a power failure in the middle of the update the
> user has a bricked machine.
> We are currently moving to a platform which has no parallel port and
> trying to get the Altera JTAG JAM player working, using a PIC18F4550
> (which was on the board anyway and has a few spare pins) as a bit-banged
> controller, with the JAM file downloaded from the PC via UART. =A0I'll le=
t
> you know if we ever get it working...
>
> In summary, if you want a standalone JTAG Flash programmer, =A0you'll
> probably have to make your own. =A0We may end up doing this ourselves, bu=
t
> it's not a high-priority project at the moment.

That is what I am thinking of, but for boards that don't have an
embedded micro.  Often the embedded micro is embedded into the FPGA
rather than being a chip on the board.

I was surprised to find that there are at least two main lines of
standards for this.  But they seem to be very similar, just more code
to debug is all.  Then they both have ASCII text versions as well as
compressed binary versions.  I haven't found a draft copy of the JAM
spec.  I could work from the code and reverse engineer that, but I'd
prefer to have a peek at the spec.  I guess I'll have to shell out the
$100.

Rick

On Nov 18, 9:10=A0pm, "AMD...@gmail.com" <amd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> IEEE 1532 is something that is a bit newer, I believe both xilinx and
> altera
> support it, not sure 'bout the others.http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1532=
/

I took a look at this link and it requires a password even though it
is for a draft copy of the spec.  Any idea where to get the user id
and password?

Rick

<news@rblack01.plus.com> wrote:

>In article <90ab17f7-1ece-4eb7-b511-bea1a5c38610@
>4g2000yqu.googlegroups.com>, gnuarm@gmail.com says...
>> Someone on Linkedin asked about a stand alone device for programming
>> the flash for FPGAs in the field or in a production environment.
>> There doesn't seem to be anything currently available like this.
>> Looking at the big three manufacturers I see at least two formats for
>> the files that might be used.  Xilinx and Lattice use SVF with Xilins
>> offering support for a compressed version called... XSVF of course.
>> Altera uses JAM.  JAM seems to be a JEDEC standard while SVF appears
>> to be a defacto industry standard developed by a company.

>code in the EEPROM bitstream and only erase / re-program the sectors 
>needed, so if there is a power failure in the middle of the update the 
>user has a bricked machine.
>We are currently moving to a platform which has no parallel port and 
>trying to get the Altera JTAG JAM player working, using a PIC18F4550 
>(which was on the board anyway and has a few spare pins) as a bit-banged 
>controller, with the JAM file downloaded from the PC via UART.  I'll let 
>you know if we ever get it working...
>
>In summary, if you want a standalone JTAG Flash programmer,  you'll 
>probably have to make your own.  We may end up doing this ourselves, but 
>it's not a high-priority project at the moment.

OpenOCD is a good start when it comes to Jtag. However I strongly
prefer using an SPI solution instead of jtag. I avoid jtag like the
plague.

-- 
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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