Programming the v1495

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Revision as of 08:23, 20 March 2010 by Narayan (talk | contribs) (New page: = Programming the v1495 = * burning new firmware in v1495 == Generic Info == By the above method we write the firmware on the EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Permanent Read Only Memory...)
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Programming the v1495

Generic Info

By the above method we write the firmware on the EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Permanent Read Only Memory) of the FPGA chip. This takes about 5-10 minutes. This firmware is loaded 'permanently'. A faster way to programme is to load the firmware into the Flash Memory using a USB blaster. This happens within 2 seconds. For programming the User (Bridge) FPGA, the USB blaster needs to be connected to the lower (upper) 6 pin male connector on the v1495, the other end of the Blaster connected to the computer through which using a software called Quartus, the *.sof file can be loaded on the flash memory.

A firmware put to the flash memory takes precedence and gets loaded on the User FPGA rather than the one stored in the permanent memory. After burning a code to the flash memory, if the crate is rebooted, the firmware loaded in the permanent memory gets loaded again.


Possible Errors

  • if after running the v1495firmware function while burning the firmware into EEPROM, if
    • the memory address to which you are loading this firmware does not have a v1495 or
    • the hardware address of the v1495 for which the VME bus address was obtained is not in the same crate/CPU, as the one from which it is trying to be programmed.

Then the following message is received back on the terminal.

 Updating firmware of the FPGA USER with the file v1495cp_16bit_r2006.rbf
 [ 16] written 0x56, read back 0xff -> Flash writing failure (byte 16 of page 48)
 !
 Firmware not loaded !
 Task not found