Forum Discussion

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

Program MAX V via .svf file

Hi folks,

I am evaluating a MAX V CPLD for a small university project, although I have not much experience with CPLDs, yet.

As I understood, the Quartus software generates file containing a description of the device logic configuration and user flash memory (UFM) for programming. However the MAX V Handbook only mentions the .jam output file format to be used in conjunction with the Altera Byte Blast programmer.

Instead, we would like to integrate the MAX V into a JTAG chain together with am STM32 uC and programm both the CPLD and the uC via a custom FT2232 based programmer, which is supported by openocd. The FTDI2232 works very well with the STM32 and integrating it onto the board makes development (in eduational courses) much easier. Unfortunately openocd only supports the .svf file format and .xsvf by Xilinx and the only thing I found was a .svf to .jam converter.

The Altera website mentions that all devices may be programmed by .svf files (good!) via third party programmers, which sounds very much like our case. Still I am unsure how to get Quartus to output a .svf and whether all features of the MAX V can acutally be represented in .svf. Thus, I would like to ask if someone has experience with MAX V + openocd.

Thanks in advance,

Arne

2 Replies

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

    i have no experience in openocd but you can create .svf file through the "JTAG chain debugger" tool. From the menu, go to "Tools->JTAG Chain Debugger" to launch and select "JTAG chain debugging" tab. You can create .svf file from there.

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

    Hi Arne,

    I have a similar requirement; I want to program a MAX II via JTAG using an FT232H in MPSSE mode.

    I was going to look at writing a programmer using the FTDI DLLs. I hadn't really thought about using OpenOCD, but that would save me some programming and would confirm that its possible.

    What is your experience with OpenOCD; are you using it under Linux or Windows?

    Based on your feedback, I'll install OpenOCD in a VirtualBox VM and use an FT232H cable (C232HM) to program a MAX II PCI kit. If that works, then your MAX V design will work fine too.

    Cheers,

    Dave