[sdiy] Serial Flash memory programmer

[Richie Burnett]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take a look.

Brian, all of the points you raised are very relevant.  The Flash chip will 
be going in a DSP system, and it will probably end up being re-programmed by 
the DSP that boots from it in the end.  At the moment it's just for one-off 
piece work as I try to debug the DSP's various boot options.  So at the 
moment I essentially need a stand-alone programmer to put a trial bootloader 
into the SPI Flash chip to then let me try booting the DSP from it,  and if 
it doesn't boot I can read back the SPI Flash chip on the programmer and at 
least know for sure that the problem isn't due to an incorrectly programmed 
boot Flash chip.  The same goes for using the DSP to re-program it's own 
flash...  If the DSP has a go at re-programming the Flash and it won't boot 
for it any more, I need to be able to pull the Flash chip and check it's 
contents is correct using a stand-alone programmer/reader.  This is my best 
option until someone invents a Flash memory where you can just pop the top 
open and look at the written data inside ;-)

All valid concerns about in-circuit programming though, which will be 
important for the final system.

Many thanks,

-Richie,

-----Original Message----- 
From: rsdio at audiobanshee.com
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2017 2:12 AM
To: Richie Burnett
Cc: SDIY List
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Serial Flash memory programmer

Richie,

Do you need to program Flash for mass production, for small scale 
manufacturing, for prototyping, or just for piece-work? Do you plan on 
programming the Flash chips as loose parts before surface-mounting them? 
Have you considered simply ordering the parts from Micron, Atmel, Microchip, 
or Spansion with pre-programmed contents? If you want to program the Flash 
in-circuit, after they're mounted, then usually the best way to do it is 
with the microprocessor that's already on the board.

There are a lot of variables, including the fact that many Flash 
manufacturers add custom commands to their chips that may not be supported 
by a generic programmer. Another issue is that the chip must be powered to 
be programmed, and if it's already soldered to the board then powering the 
Flash will power everything else and presumably start reading from the Flash 
(which interferes with any attempt to write to it).

Brian


On Feb 5, 2017, at 3:46 PM, "Richie Burnett" <rburnett at richieburnett.co.uk> 
wrote:
> Can anyone recommend a decent unit for erasing/programming/reading serial 
> (SPI) Flash memory chips using a Windows PC over USB?  I'm only wanting to 
> program or read the odd chip here and there, so only very low volumes. 
> I'm happy to use an exposed board "dev kit" type of thing, or a more 
> expensive finished product, but ideally under GBP 200 ($250).  Mostly 
> wanting to program 8-pin and 16-pin surface mount NOR Flash chips from the 
> likes of Micron, Atmel, Microchip, Spansion, etc, from Intel HEX record 
> files.
>
> I know it's relatively easy to make my own programmer using a 
> microcontroller, but at this time I am really busy and don't want to get 
> bogged down in all the different page size, sector size, erase block size, 
> programming configuration settings for each device that I might need to 
> program.  I've spent many hours writing SPI Flash driver code on micros in 
> the past, but just want to buy a tool I can rely on to do a job now.
>
> Many thanks for any suggestions.
>


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