Altera USB-Blaster II Design

Can you share the details provided by Altera, or does access require an NDA with Altera?

Could you post the Stratix V kit schematic (to save anyone interested having to install the kit software)? (Actually, since you have not had enough postings to the forum, you cannot, so email it to me using a regular email program using my forum name as the email address, and I'll post it to this thread)

As far as I recall, the USB-Blaster II is a Cypress CY7C68013A EZ-USB PHY and a MAX II CPLD.

The EZ-USB can be configured directly over USB or it can be configured from an EEPROM. If the Stratix V kit has an EEPROM attached to the Cypress part, then Altera *also* need to supply you the image to download to that device too.

Perhaps that is the reason the USB-Blaster II is not detected correctly ...

Cheers,

Dave

That is correct. the MAx II CPLD we used was the EPM570GM100. And all we were given was .exe program they wrote that runs through the Quartus 12.0 interface, a .pof for the CPLD programming, and the drivers for binding prior to programming.

-ryan

Hi Ryan,

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That is correct. the MAx II CPLD we used was the EPM570GM100. And all we were given was .exe program they wrote that runs through the Quartus 12.0 interface, a .pof for the CPLD programming, and the drivers for binding prior to programming.

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If you look at the USB-Blaster II circuit on p25 of the schematic, you can see that the Cypress FX2 device EEPROM signals FX2_SCL/SDA connect to the MAX II device. This implies that the MAX II UFM (user flash memory) is being used to emulate the I2C EEPROM. This means that the MAX II .pof contains *both* the MAX II configuration image and the Cypress FX2 EEPROM image. This is why the instructions document tells you that you have to send Altera the USB serial ID information.

Here's what I recommend.

1. Erase the MAX II device, power cycle your board, and use USBView to look at the USB ID of the board.

According to the instructions document, the FX2 should show up as Cypress FX2 ID (VID=04B4, PID=8613).

2. Use the Altera jtagmaxprog tool to program the .pof into the MAX II device, and then cycle power so that the MAX II configures using this .pof.

Use USBView to look at the USB IDs of the board.

The USB-Blaster II should now show up with whatever ID Altera expects for the device, which according to:

http://www.altera.com/download/drivers/dri-usb_b-lnx.html

is 09fb:6010 or 09fb:6810

Unless of course you supplied Altera with a custom VID/PID combo.

3. If (2) fails, then create a MAX II configuration that simply blinks an LED, and use jtagmaxprog to download it.

jtagmaxprog is just a program that bit-bangs the MAX II JTAG interface to download a configuration. A blinky LED .pof file should download fine. Since the MAX II will not implement the EEPROM image, the FX2 will still appear on the bus after you cycle power.

This last step will confirm that you do not have a hardware issue with the MAX II power. It will not confirm you don't have a short on the signals between the MAX II and the FX2 devices - do you have multiple boards that you can test?

Cheers,

Dave

hey Dave,

I can confirm that the unprogrammed board has the correct Cypress Fx2 ID. As soon as i program it, it pops up with the 09Fb:6010 which is expected. The problem is when i power cycle it, the device manager says the device has malfunctioned, and the vid and pid both read "0000". going to attempt the .pof you recommended and will let you know how it goes. and yes i have 3 difference cards i have tested so far.

-ryan

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I can confirm that the unprogrammed board has the correct Cypress Fx2 ID. As soon as i program it, it pops up with the 09Fb:6010 which is expected.

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Ok. This implies that the FX2 was able to read the USB device info from the MAX II UFM correctly.

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The problem is when i power cycle it, the device manager says the device has malfunctioned, and the vid and pid both read "0000".

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This implies that the FX2 was *not* able to read the EEPROM contents correctly.

If the first time had failed, I'd have suspected that the EEPROM contents were not correctly located in the .pof image. However, given your observations, it worked once, so it should work the second time.

You could try probing the I2C bus to see whether there is activity on the clock and data ... and if you have a fancy scope or logic analyzer, try decoding the traffic. The format of the traffic will be defined in the FX2 documentation.

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going to attempt the .pof you recommended and will let you know how it goes. and yes i have 3 difference cards i have tested so far.

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Sounds good.

Best of luck :)

Cheers,

Dave

Hey dave,

Update on the LED pof example. While programming the LED's directly through the programmer i successfully programmed my board. The issue was when i tried using the jtagmaxprog.exe i got the following error: Unused parts of pof file ROM are not zero. This was when trying to use the jtagmaxprog to implement my new led pof file. I tried to find a setting under the quartus II to set ROM to zero, but was not successful. any ideas?

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Update on the LED pof example. While programming the LED's directly through the programmer i successfully programmed my board. The issue was when i tried using the jtagmaxprog.exe i got the following error: Unused parts of pof file ROM are not zero. This was when trying to use the jtagmaxprog to implement my new led pof file. I tried to find a setting under the quartus II to set ROM to zero, but was not successful. any ideas?

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Sorry, this description is a little confusing. You say you "successfully programmed" the board but then you say you got an error. I suspect you mean that when you used Altera's .pof it succeeded, but when you used your .pof it failed.

It sounds like Altera's tool is checking the .pof image to make sure the UFM is not blank ... I really dislike these types of tools being closed-source as you cannot 'extend' their features easily.

You could add a UFM block and fill it with junk. I've attached a top-level UFM component that can be used in synthesis and simulation. You can use this, or just read it to see how to wire the component. You should be able to tie the inputs to static valid logic levels and then add a synthesis constraint (keep, preserve, or noprune ... I forget which) to stop Quartus from deleting the logic. Your .hex file could contain an incrementing count, which you can see in the .pof if you scroll down into it (after opening the file in binary format). I've attached a c-file that generates a .hex file with a count.

If that does not work, try submitting a service request and ask Altera for the source to jtagmaxprog ... its unlikely to contain anything particularly proprietary (the MAX II programming sequence via JTAG is effectively documented by the JRunner source code) ... at a minimum, ask if they can supply a version with a command-line option to disable the .pof checks.

Cheers,

Dave

Sorry about that. What i meant was while programming my board via a USB Blaster, i got the LED's to do what i wanted. When i try to program my board using the jtagmaxprog, i get that error. i tried creating a blank memory block using the megawizardplug in, and the IP component name "ALTUFM_NONE" but i still get the same error. Currently hae an open SR with altera, but they are very slow to answer, and even slower to give any useful advice.

-ryan

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Sorry about that. What i meant was while programming my board via a USB Blaster, i got the LED's to do what i wanted.

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Ok, great. That confirms the MAX II is fine.

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When i try to program my board using the jtagmaxprog, i get that error. i tried creating a blank memory block using the megawizardplug in, and the IP component name "ALTUFM_NONE" but i still get the same error.

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I'm not sure that none will be sufficient, since the .pof locations for the UFM will still be blank. Try a UFM that is initialized to the count via the code that I sent you. If you can't figure out how to get it to work, let me know, and it shouldn't take me long to create a design.

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Currently hae an open SR with altera, but they are very slow to answer, and even slower to give any useful advice.

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Closed-source is not good :(

Do you have an development kit with a working USB-Blaster II design? You could try tracing the USB activity with wireshark (under Linux, not Windows) and seeing what a successful configuration looks like, versus what happens on your custom board.

Cheers,

Dave

I know what you mean about closed source... and well actually the schematics for the other boards i was looking at had a few different pinouts between the fx2 chip and the cpld. But quick question for you: lets say i have a epm570gm100, and an epm570gf100 (two different packages). I know that some of the pins correspond to different pin numbers between the two chips, but lets say functionality wise i matched the two pinouts (ex. on one chip pin e3 is for sig1. on second chip e3 from previous chip maps to e2 on next chip. hence i route sig1 to e2 on chip 2.) Would a .pof meant for the epm570gf100 then work for the epm570gm100?

-ryan