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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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13 years ago

Stratix III Development Kit Embedded USB Blaster Problem

Hi everyone,

I use Stratix III 3SL150 Development Board. However, I have encountered with a JTAG problem when using the Embedded USB Blaster.

At the beginning everything was ok, I was able to program the FPGA with *.sof files.

Later, I programmed the flash memory with the PFL megafunction design that the development kit includes and the project *.pof file.

At the power up FPGA was configured from the flash correctly.

However, after this step embedded usb blaster became useless. Suddenly the quartus Tool is not able to detect the device from the JTAG chain. However, when I try with the External USB Blaster I can see the JTAG chain and program the FPGA correctly.

I have restored the factory design to the flash device , factory design is working but JTAG chain with embedded USB Blaster still does not work. When restoring, I have used "stratixIII_3sl150_dev_pfl.sof" and "stratix_3sl150_dev_factory.pof"

There are still two more files in the factory_recovery directory that the development kit include;

"m2_prod.pof" and "stratixIII_3sl150_dev_max2_prod.pof" The Quartus version that the kit has is v7.2. For the newer version there is a warning that since the board was manufactured before 2010, never factory recovery binaries would not work.

I thought that the problem is in the MAX II cpld which controls JTAG chain through the embedded usb blaster. However, I couldn't decide which file should I program the CPLD "m2_prod.pof" or "stratixIII_3sl150_dev_max2_prod.pof"? In the directory there is no read me file.

How can I restore the factory configuration for MAX II CPLD?

What can be the problem? And how can I solve this problem?

1 Reply

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    13 years ago

    The Embedded USB-Blaster will disable itself if there is a cable plugged into the external blaster socket (whether that cable is connected on the USB side or not). This is to protect against two cables trying to drive the JTAG chain at once. Please check that you have unplugged all external blaster cables.

    If I remember right then this board has two MAX devices on it - a small max device which runs the USB-Blaster and a large max device which reads the flash and configures the FPGA from it (among other things).

    If you have reprogrammed or erased the USB-Blaster max then that cable will not work. You may have bricked your board as a result, so best not to touch that one.

    If you have erased the System Controller (large) MAX then the board will no longer configure at startup - you just need to reprogram it to get the board back to life.

    If none of this helps then can you cut and paste the error message from `jtagconfig -d` as the exact error message give useful information about the failure.