little-atf-programmer 2025.1023

Little ATF150x Programmer Board utility programs

Little ATF150x Programmer Board

Software utilities

What

This repository contains the official standard programmer software and utilities for the Little ATF150x Programmer Board.

This is a plug-and-play USB-connected programmer and breakout board for Atmel (Microchip) ATF150{2,4,8}{AS,ASV} CPLDs, featuring:

• Support for JED, SVF or XSVF files
• Support for both PLCC44 and 84 packages on-board
• Ability to drive ICSP via the JTAG headers (single-device only - chains not currently supported)
• Ability to erase JTAG-locked and secured devices

The board is now available on the on the rosco_m68k store 🥳

Software Installation

Prerequisites:

• Recent macOS, Linux or Windows operating system
• Working Python (3.9+) installation
  • Recent macOS and Linux will likely have this by default
  • If not, it can be installed with your package manager
  • Windows users can download from https://www.python.org/downloads/windows
  • python and pip should be in your PATH for easiest installation experience

Note: on some systems, your python may instead be named python3, with pip being similarly named pip3. As long as Python is version 3.9 or higher (as reported by python3 --version) it should work just fine.

Latest release

With a Python environment that meets these requirements, installation is as simple as:

pip install little-atf-programmer

Note: on Windows, when installing you may receive a message from pip warning that the installed binaries are not in your PATH. If you see this, for easier installation you may wish to add the directory in the warning to your PATH by editing in Control Panel / System / Advanced / Environment Variables.

From source

Developers and project collaborators may wish to install from source.

To do this, clone the project from GitHub (or grab a source tarball).

Then either run python src/atfu.py or install with pip if you like:

pip install .

If you're hacking on the code, you'll probably want to install it --editable.

Usage

General arguments

General command line arguments look like this:

atfu [-h] [--version] [-q] [-v] [-t] {program,erase,check,programmer} ...

Little ATF150x Programmer Board Utility

positional arguments:
  {scan,program,erase,check,verify,programmer}
    scan                Scan for ATF150x devices
    program             Program an ATF150x device
    erase               Erase an ATF150x device
    check               Check if an ATF150x device is blank
    verify              Verify an ATF150x device
    programmer          Little ATF150x Programmer Board device functions

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -q, --quiet           Silence almost all output
  -v, --verbose         Allow additional output
  -t, --trace           Enable debugging output (can be noisy!)

Device scan mode

This mode is used to scan the connected ATF CPLD, and try to autodetect the specific type of the chip.

By default, the first detected programmer will be used. This can be changed with the -p option.

The -n option can be used to obtain unadorned output. This can be useful for passing to other commands, or to atfu itself if you want to work with whatever device is detected, e.g.

atfu program -d $(atfu scan -n) my_file.jed

Usage:

atfu scan [-h] [-n] [-p PROGRAMMER]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -n, --plain           Plain output, only the unadorned device name, no newline
  -p PROGRAMMER, --programmer PROGRAMMER
                        Programmer device (default: <detected>)

Program mode

This mode is used to program JEDEC, SVF or XSVF files to an ATF150x device.

By default, the first detected programmer will be used. This can be changed with the -p option.

If you have problems programming, try erasing first with the -e option, or force-erasing with the -f option, which can be useful when you have a JTAG-locked or secured device.

atfu program [-h] [-e] [-f] [-d {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508}] [-p PROGRAMMER] filename [filename ...]

positional arguments:
  filename              .jed, .svf or .xsvf file(s) to program

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -e, --erase           Erase before programming
  -f, --force           Force-erase before programming (implies -e)
  -d {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}, --device {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}
                        Device to program (default: ATF1502AS)
  -p PROGRAMMER, --programmer PROGRAMMER
                        Programmer device (default: <detected>)

Erase mode

This mode is used to erase an ATF150x device, and can also be used to force erase JTAG-locked or secured devices.

By default, the first detected programmer will be used. This can be changed with the -p option.

Note that the force mode might be... stressful for your device, so try a regular erase first :)

atfu erase [-h] [-f] [-p PROGRAMMER] [-d {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508}]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -f, --force           Force erase
  -p PROGRAMMER, --programmer PROGRAMMER
                        Programmer device (default: <detected>)
  -d {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}, --device {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}
                        Device to erase (default: ATF1502AS)

Check mode

This mode is used to determine whether an ATF150x device is blank.

By default, the first detected programmer will be used. This can be changed with the -p option.

atfu check [-h] [-p PROGRAMMER] [-d {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508}]

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -p PROGRAMMER, --programmer PROGRAMMER
                        Programmer device (default: <detected>)
  -d {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}, --device {ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}
                        Device to check (default: ATF1502AS)

Verify mode

This mode is used to verify the contents of an ATF150x device against a JESD3-C (.jed) file.

By default, the first detected programmer will be used. This can be changed with the -p option.

Verification cannot be performed against SVF or XSVF files. The expectation for those is that verification would be encoded into the vectors themselves.

atfu verify [-h] [-d {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508,ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}] [-p PROGRAMMER] filename [filename ...]

positional arguments:
  filename              .jed file(s) to verify against

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508,ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}, --device {ATF1502,ATF1504,ATF1508,ATF1502AS,ATF1504AS,ATF1508AS,ATF1502ASV,ATF1504ASV,ATF1508ASV}
                        Device to verify (default: ATF1502AS)
  -p PROGRAMMER, --programmer PROGRAMMER
                        Programmer device (default: <detected>)

Programmer mode

This mode can be used to list detected programmer boards, and query them.

atfu programmer [-h] {list,query} ...

positional arguments:
  {list,query}

options:
  -h, --help    show this help message and exit


atfu programmer list [-h] [--plain]

Functions for listing connected programmers

options:
  -h, --help   show this help message and exit
  -n, --plain  Display a plain list of device paths

Copyright

Copyright ©2024 The Really Old-School Company Limited.

Portions Copyright (C) 2019-2020 [e-mail]

Portions Copyright (c) 2015 Marcelo Roberto Jimenez <marcelo.jimenez (at) gmail (dot) com>

Portions Copyright 2008, SoftPLC Corporation http://softplc.com [Dick Hollenbeck [e-mail]]

Mostly MIT License, portions under other licenses - see LICENSE.md & source code comments.