Atmel AT17C512 in system programming

[Guest]

We have a system with an AT17C512 that configures a Xilinx Spartan. We would like to program the AT17C512 in system using our Dataman-48LV, everything works OK until we add the ~150uF of capacitance needed on the circuit when programming and verifying fails. We have tried powering our circuit from a seperate supply but it still will not verify correctly.
Any ideas?
Thanks in advance, Tim

[Dataman (Neil Parker)]

Hi Tim,

I am afraid that ISP programming is not officially supported on the Dataman 48 programmer even though it is possible. First you need to ensure that the chip has the ISP mode programming algorithm, some chips have parallel and ISP programming mode. In our software we only pick one algorithm (not necessarily ISP). If the algorithm we have implemented is ISP mode then you have a chance to program the chip in your target board with ISP (these chips include serial EEPROM’s,
new PIC 16Fxx, 18C/Fxx, and ATtiny family).

Trying to program the chip on the board with ISP will report a device insertion error in the software, to overcome this insertion error and continuity check error some customers use a real chip inserted into the 48 pin ZIF on the D48 and blend the ISP pins out of the ZIF socket and then connect the ISP pins from the ZIF socket and use the ISP signal to program the chip on the board. Many customers tell us that this works well.

Hope this helps,

Neil