Forum Discussion

Eugeny_Brychkov's avatar
Eugeny_Brychkov
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
7 years ago

Can I program active serial device other than Altera's one using Quartus (programmer) through cable?

I am going to replace EPCS16 with W25Q128FVSIG - due to cost and size reasons. I have already successfull programmed W25Q through cable using my own hardware and software and made FPGA configuring fr...
Nooraini_Y_Intel's avatar
Nooraini_Y_Intel
Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor
7 years ago

Hi Eugeny,

You are right, the Byteblaster II (EOL donwload cable) is no longer support in newer Quartus version. Furthermore, Byteblaster II only work in older 32-bit OS machine. You can only use USB Blaster and USB Blaster II cable with in newer Quartus version.

Regards,

Nooraini

Eugeny_Brychkov's avatar
Eugeny_Brychkov
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
7 years ago

I have got USB blaster. I tried all available serial configuration devices on the Intel list, and 18.1 refuses to program W25W128FV complaining about silicon ID. So Altera/Intel still locks its customers to very specific range of the partner vendors.

This is actually a bad business decision: industrial designs will still use recommended chips, but hobbyist market is affected badly. There will be not much revenue from the hobbyists, but it is hobbyists and technology advocates who create word of mouth.

I am sad that I did not consider Xilinx one more time before making my first design in 2011. I have based my decision on the usefulness of forum (alteraforum dot com that time), and attitude of forum members. Well, that time it was bad for Xilinx, now bad times for Intel.