Forum Discussion

Waghlis's avatar
Waghlis
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 years ago

Problem extracting the program / current configuration of the Altera Max7000s FPGA on a card.

In wanting to extract the current program / configuration contained in an ALTERA MAX7000S FPGA on a card equipped with a JTAG port, and this for possible use on another FPGA, I did not find any indic...
_AK6DN_'s avatar
_AK6DN_
Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor
2 years ago

Not possible to do with the available version of QuartusII (13.0sp1) that supports the MAX7000S series.

Reading the device image is not supported in that software, it was only available in much earlier versions that are no longer online.

It can be done with a third party device programmer (EEtools, Xeltek, etc) with the appropriate adapters.

Assuming that the security bit is not set, however. If it is you cannot read the device under any condition, only erase and reprogram.

For reference, I have Quartus 13.0sp1 on my Win10 system, and both Quartus 9.1sp2 and Quartus 6.1 on my Win7 system, and none of them can read back the program in my EPM7064SLC44-10 device. They all can program and verify it fine with a USB BlasterII, just not examine/read it. My understanding is you need to go back to MaxPlus2 (tool generation before Quartus) to get read back functionality. I don't have any MaxPlus2 s/w.