Re: chip programmers



-- 
Sent from mobile device. Please have understanding. 
On Fri, 21 Jan 2022 at 18:28, Terry Raymond <traymond160_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Im very very new to FPGA mainly CPLD.
> I have a few Japanese USB Eprom programmers.
> Is it possible to program a GAL chip in an Eprom programmer?

To clarify - CPLDs are considrered to be a different thing than FPGAs,
and GALs are considered to be neither of the two but rather "SPLDs" as
of today. All are PLDs (Programmable Logic Devices) though. Now, while
the distinction between SPLDs and CPLDs might be somewhat blurry, the
difference between CPLDs and FPGAs is rather clear. If you are working
with GALs, then you work with neither FPGA nor CPLD. With that out of
the way, EPROMs are programmed differently than PLDs (like GALs).
There are of course "chip programmers" which allow to program both
types of "chips" but they have to have explicit hardware and software
support for that. Moreover, from what I heard the only vendor that
still has SPLDs in its programme is the venerable Atmel. You can still
source some, possibly refurbished chips from other manufacturers like
e. g. Lattice and many "chip programmers" will be able to program
them. If OTOH you want to use the Atmel variants then I some time ago
found it much harder to program them, even with "chip programmers"
that claim full support. There should be an old thread of mine about
this in the archives. I had to buy a much more expensive hardware to
be able to successfully program Atmel's GAL equivalents.

> And I dont know if my older Intel Quartus software would have the correct
> drivers for a USB programmer, is that usually the case?

Please somebody correct me if I am wrong but I don't recall any
version of Quartus claiming GAL chips support. Moreover "driver
support" for third party chip programming hardware. It does support
the "Altera xxx blaster" where "xxx" can be "USB".

> Just tinkering with CMOS logic and I have the 2 books that Jeri Ellsworth recommends for
> CPLD very very handy books and they have really helped me a lot with CMOS.

Cool!