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IoanFlorucza's avatar
IoanFlorucza
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
5 years ago
Solved

Quartus Programmer SW, 2 SW versions on the same PC

We have an test system PC installed into the out MFG floor, which use Altera Blaster download cable (PL-USB-BLASTER-RCN) to program the FPGA of the products. On this test system PC is installed and u...
  • YuanLi_S_Intel's avatar
    YuanLi_S_Intel
    5 years ago

    Hi


    Please find my response below:

    1. can be add somehow in the old Quartus SW (13.0.1) to be able to

    program the Cyclone 10 FPGA? if yes how?

    No


    2. If I purchase the Alter Blaster 2 (PL-USB2-BLASTER) download cable

    and used only with the latest Quartus SW (20.1.1) still i will have the

    same issue?

    I think this a good idea. The reason is blaster 2 and blaster 1 have different driver and they are not the same.


    Regards,

    Bruce


sstrell's avatar
sstrell
Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
5 years ago

What are the old devices that you still need to program? You should be able to do everything in the new programmer as long as you have existing programming files for the old devices and the devices are detected in the new Programmer, which they should be over JTAG.

When connected to the old devices, in the new Programmer, select the cable (USB Blaster?) and click Auto Detect. If you can see the devices, you can use the new Programmer for everything. That way you don't need two copies of Programmer (open at the same time?).

IoanFlorucza's avatar
IoanFlorucza
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
5 years ago

The old devices are Cyclone 2 FPGA (EP2C20F484, EP2C35F484,...) and the new device is Cyclone 10 (10CL080YF484I7G) FPGA.

The idea is that to not do any modification for the test SW which are for the old devices and is working with the old Quartus Programmer SW because there are several test flow SW which then will require to update the path of the CLI app (quartus_pgm.exe) of the Quartus Programmer SW to point the new Quartus Programmer SW and than also we will need to re-validate the test system in the manufacturing line.

So I have to find an alternative solution for this issue.

If we purchase an Alter Blaster 2 (PL-USB2-BLASTER) download cable and used only with the latest Quartus SW (20.1.1), then still I will have the same issue?

  • sstrell's avatar
    sstrell
    Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
    5 years ago

    The cable has nothing to do with it. That's just a JTAG bridge. The newer cable supports USB 2.0.

    So you're saying the old Programmer doesn't see the C10 device on the JTAG chain, even after you click Auto Detect? If it doesn't, and you can't switch to the newer version of the Programmer, then there's not much you can do.