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MSP430: Programmer suggestion for mass production?

BasePointer
Expert 1570 points
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430F47187

Hi,

 

I'm looking for a stand alone programmer for MSP430 to use it in mass production. Multiple programming at a time is not our request, I need something single programer but fast and reliable. Also can you estimate programming and verifing duration for 120K?

 

10x

  • 0
    Guru 17650 points

    Hi BasePointer,

    why don't you give the parts to a programming service? The have multiple programming handlers (i.e. from Data I/O) which can do the job for you. They are fast and reliable and it will only cost you a portion of the cost you have when you do the programming at your place.

    Rgds
    aBUGSworstnightmare

  • 0 in reply to Joerg Quinten
    Guru 12160 points

    Hi 10x,

    The GANG programmer is a nice standalone programmer.  It can program just one at a time if you like.  It can also operate under the control of a PC if needed.  Pretty flexible.

    For 120KB including verify, the times should be less than 10 seconds for 4-wire JTAG and less than 30 seconds for 2-wire (SBW) JTAG.  Rough estimates.

    Jeff

  • 0 in reply to Jeff Tenney
    Expert 2080 points

    I'm working with the Elprotronic programmer , the FlashPro430, which provides dll and other stuff to interface the programmer with Labview (for testing and calibration). 

    There is different information on her website, including programming speed : Jtag = 26kb/s, SBW = 8kb/s, pogram&fast verify takes 1.7 sec for 32k, 3.5 sec for 60k.

    We have produces more than 200k device with the same programmer, in fact two programmation for each one (test software + release version).

    If you doesn't need to develop specific hardware inferface, and test program, outsourcing this production is not a bad idea.

  • 0 in reply to Argail
    Expert 1570 points

    Hi Argail,

    GangPro430 and FlashPro430 seem nice. I like their DCO calibration features. But my question, can it work without PC? I dont want to allocate a PC in the production which is broken frequently. Does it have standalone working mode which means I will load image file to the programer only one time by using PC.

    Also the part that I want to program is MSP430F47187 which has 116KByte flash memory. (more than 64KByte). I think this programmer doesn`t support such as huge flash size.

    I also wonder that speeds you mentioned is kilo-bit/second or kilo-byte/seceond? Do you mean, 60KByte programming and fast verfying at 3.5 second with jtag?

    Thank you.

  • 0 in reply to Jeff Tenney
    Expert 1570 points

    Hi Jeff,

     

    Thanks for the suggestion. It seems cheap and fast. Calibrating DCO would be wonderful. It doesn`t have such a feature, right?

     

    Regards,

     

     

  • 0 in reply to BasePointer
    Guru 12160 points

    Right, TI's GANG programmer won't calibrate the DCO.

    Not to get too far off topic, but have you considered letting the target calibrate its own DCO?  If the target has its own 32kHz quartz crystal reference, the calibration could be done whenever you want.  Otherwise, the calibration could be done early in test and production by having an externally applied 32kHz (or other) reference for the firmware to use in the calibration process.

    Just a thought to get you decoupled from programmers that can calibrate the DCO.

    Jeff

     

  • 0 in reply to BasePointer
    Guru 227245 points

    BasePointer said:
    Does it have standalone working mode


    For standalone mode, Olimex has a programmer which can be attached to PC as USB stick mode and you upload your image. Then it can standalone flash the devices. Of course all devices are 100% the same then (except for the factory-programmed TLV table entries)

    Alternatively, you can keep it connected to the PC and it works as a normal FET. And with the libraries properly installed, it should work with the Elpotronic software which has some nice features for mass production (such as injecting serieal number from a file into the flashed code etc.)

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