Project Description
FlashRunner is a universal, In-System Programmer designed specifically for the production environment. It is the result of SMH Technologies’ extensive experience in developing ISP Programming Solutions for microcontrollers and memories.
In a recent article dedicated to FlashRunner, SMH Technologies’ Team discussed its Scalability, Robustness, and In-Field Reliability. Today, the focus shifts to its Universality, Flexibility, and Performance.
FlashRunner Universality
There are many companies whose core business is to manufacture microcontrollers, memories, CPLDs, EMMCs, FPGAs…
FlashRunner is a universal ISP programmer and allows the programming of all the above quoted architectures produced by all these companies, the so called “Silicon Producers”.
It is not related to one or some of them; potentially, everything that has a programmable memory to store data is suitable to be connected to FlashRunner and flashed through its communication protocol.
In fact, FlashRunner device list contains from the most popular to the most uncommon devices present in the market.
FlashRunner Flexibility
When choosing an ISP programmer, it is fundamental to evaluate also the possibilities that it offers and how it adapts to the various market needs. FlashRunner is an extremely flexible and versatile solution.
Questions like:
1) How to handle the power supply during the flashing phase
2) Different communication protocols need to be used
3) How to integrate the programmer in different industrial environment
4) …
FlashRunner propmptly aswers to all these doubts in a very easy and efficient way.
Apart from supplying a board externally, it is also possible to use the VPROG pins of the FlashRunner.
Every channel has two pins, called VPROG0 and VPROG1, that could possibly supply the ISP target during the flashing phase.
1) The VPROG0 range goes from 1.8V to 5.5V and it is mainly used to supply just the MCU that goes under flashing.
2) The VPROG1 range goes from 6.5V to 13.5V and it can be used to supply the whole boards.
Based on boards design constraints and current consumption limits, the customer can decide what is the best power supply solution for his applications.
FlashRunner Digital Input/Output pins (DIOs) are managed by an FPGA: this architecture can manage them to perform every kind of communication protocol needed by the ISP target to be flashed. In fact, FlashRunner communication protocols portfolio includes from the least to the most used ones.
The FPGA can also automatically be partially configured to perform different communication protocols in different channels: this is internally handled and completely transparent to the customer.
FlashRunner is employable in every kind of electronic boards manufacturer production lines: low/mid/high volume productions.
A dedicated Graphical User Interface can be used in a very easy and user-friendly way to handle and integrate FlashRunner in small production, even in the bench to get familiar with and test it together with the ISP target.
For more complex and automatized industrial environment, DLLs are provided to serve the same purposes. The goal is, as always, production efficiency and customer satisfaction.
FlashRunner Performances
Optimized flashing algorithms are running inside FlashRunner to achieve high performances in terms of programming cycle time and flashing speed.
Furthermore, the parallelism allows the product to be even more performing in flashing multiple devices at the same time independently from each other.
Time saving and production efficiency is guaranteed.
In conclusion, FlashRunner offers many advantages that provide significant benefits to the production environment where it is integrated.
In short, FlashRunner is:
– universal, supporting multiple device manufacturers;
– fast, ensuring reduced programming time and therefore reduced production costs;
– flexible, as it can be applied to any programming configuration;
– reliable, its features ensure data integrity and uninterrupted production flow.