Re: Atmel AVR development tools



dbvanhorn wrote:

The AVR debug core is unreliable, jtag or non-jtag. SPI programming
is much more reliable. Also, avoid bootloaders.


I keep hoping it's something I'm doing. That's fixable, I just need to
know what to do/not do .

Interesting comment re bootloaders, why do you say that?

The AVR bootloader has to contain the subroutines for erasing and programming. Those subroutines can be activated accidentally by an electric glitch, software bug, cosmic ray, unholy spirit or something like that. Although this event is not very likely, I have observed the failure rate due to that at the order of one per 5k units per year in the harsh EMI environment.

The safer approach would be loading the subroutines to RAM from the outside only when you need to reflash the device. However this can't be done with the AVR.

Vladimir Vassilevsky
DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant
http://www.abvolt.com
.