Lattice FPGA programmer

[Miti]

Lattice HW-USBN-2B is $340 CAD at Mouser. R U kidding me? What are you using to program Lattice?

Cheers,
Miti

[ataradov]

Generic one from AliExpress for $25.

[Miti]

May I ask for a known good model number / item from Ali?

[ataradov]

I think there is only one model that multiple sellers sell. It is hard to tell for sure. Here are a couple variants of the labels https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802957528698.html and https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800151545453.html

I have something that looks like that. It works for basic programming without any issues.

[SiliconWizard]

Well FPGA vendor tools are always expensive. But this used to be significantly cheaper than this (about half that price?) - prices of dev tools have literally exploded at Lattice in the past few years. Their dev boards are also about twice what they used to be, or more.

All that's needed for Lattice programming is any FTDI-based JTAG programmer, something FT2232H-based will work fine.

[ataradov]

That programmer is not anything special, it is just a typical cy7c68013a and a couple level shifters. But it is nice to have a tool in a plastic case clearly labeled and readily recognized by the IDE. For $25 it is a good deal. $340 is a rippoff, but I also have no idea what "B" in the " HW-USBN-2B" means. It may be some significant improvement. 

On a quick check, it looks like it adds I2C interface, but no other features that I can see.

[Miti]

Well FPGA vendor tools are always expensive. But this used to be significantly cheaper than this (about half that price?) - prices of dev tools have literally exploded at Lattice in the past few years. Their dev boards are also about twice what they used to be, or more.

All that's needed for Lattice programming is any FTDI-based JTAG programmer, something FT2232H-based will work fine.

I have the  FT232HQ but, as Alex said, would it be detected by the programmer?

Cheers,
Miti

[mon2]

Agree with the above comments. If you study some of the official kits by Lattice, one at least contains the FT2232H controller. Respectively, this is desirable so that you can make use of the existing toolchain (JTAG) for quick programming. JTAG on its own is not a complex spec and even a $ 0.10 micro can bit-bang out out the timing to reflash the internal flash or SRAM contents. However, for initial development, remain with a proven foundation.

Also, do review SZFPGA.COM who offers a mix of FPGA tools. While not the lowest cost, they do have quality and unique kits. We purchased a batch of the ones for the GOWIN FPGA targets. Support is not poor but not the best. They will share fpga project files after a confirmation of the purchase. We did purchase their version of the Gowin FPGA programmer and it is working well to reflash our Gowin devices using the official Gowin toolchain. They also support Lattice and XILINX I believe.

Our interest is to create a low cost JTAG tool for under $1 for end-user field upgrades. To us, the U2X by Gowin is overpriced.

[dukelec]

FT232H also supported, but should modify something, please have a look at:
(Translate to English by your browser first.)
https://github.com/dukelec/cdpga/blob/master/cdpga_b/readme_zh.md