Xilinx iMPACT 14.7 with Altium JTAG Programmer

[murdertrk]

Hello everyone,

I am experimenting with the Altium's DT05 (JTAG Programmer) for about a week. I have managed to connect and program Spartan-6 series FPGAs and also XCF series FLASH memories, through Altium Designer's Devices interface.

Unfortunately, the company that I am working for has only one floating Altium license and due to this, we would like to be able to use that JTAG programmer with other programming applications. I have tried interfacing the cable with Xilinx iMPACT, however it didn't work. What I tried was auto-connecting the cable, it simply didn't see the cable at all (regardless of presence/absence of devices on JTAG chain).

My question is, is there a way to make this JTAG programmer work without Altium Designer? Mainly, this device will be used to program Xilinx chips (FPGAs and memories), so I'd expect answers primariliy focused on these devices.

 

[ads-ee]

Well Xilinx's JTAG programmer uses a driver, unless Altium Designer communicates with Xilinx's JTAG programmer through the Xilinx driver I suspect you won't get this to work.

 

[trkarl]

There is a way! I've written up a post about it at **broken link removed** I hope it helps!

 

[trkarl]

To further clarify my previous post, the Altium JTAG Programmer is based on a FTDI FT2232H chip with a companion EEPROM for configuration. You can use their FT_Prog program to re-flash the EEPROM with different profiles, including one that mimics a Digilent USB JTAG Programmer for use with Xilinx iMPACT.

You can also use a profile for use with the FTDI drivers which work with openOCD (an open-source JTAG debugger). This is something that I haven't gotten to exploring yet.

But by far my favorite option is to use it as a 3.3V and 5V compliant USB-to-serial adapter for when you lose your other one (ask me how I know).

I give instructions, links, and XML templates in my first, and so far only blog post here: **broken link removed**

I changed my permalink settings on the blog to use more descriptive links, which is why I reposted the link here. I had left the default, post number-based links active like a Noob. Whoops! Again, I hope this helps!