Flash programmer without IDE

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originally posted by nroddier@Feb 6 2006, 03:45 AM

hello,

we're using ide in the r&d lab to program cfi flash on our board for fpga config, nios code, and various other user data files.

there's no issue when using this method in the lab with the nios ide. however, once in production, there's no pc or ide available. the only processor available in the system is an atmel arm running linux. it has access to the jtag chain.

we are able to program the maxii using the jam player. we can also configure the fpga at power up, but we can't execute the flash programmer utility since we don't have the exececutable code for this processor/os. is there a source available? is it possible to obtain jam files for the programming process? i have the .flash files but i can't do anything with them.

any help will be appreciated.

thanks, nicolas roddier

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Hi Nicolas,

I think the flash programmer commandline mode only works in the PC environment (It needs the Quartus II programmer and the nios2-flash-programmer.exe file). You can reference the Flash Programmer Users Guide for running the flash programmer in command line mode. Appendix C covers how to set-up a "production" installation.

http://www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_nio..._programmer.pdf (http://www.altera.com/literature/ug/ug_nios2_flash_programmer.pdf)

The other "method" you can try is to program your flash to have a "master image" and then remove the flash chip from the board and copy the flash image on a programmer. Once you have a flash image you can replicate the image on other flash chips before soldering them to the board. This was the way things were done before in-system programming via JTAG. Of course the risk was always in the removal of the flash chip.

Regards,

-ATJ