Which USB Blaster for Altera Max 10 ?

[Martin72]

Hi,

absolutely no plan of it, until now I only knew lattice PLDs and their programming via the known usb adapter.
I would like to read or program an Altera Max 10 FPGA via the JTAG interface.
I had received the tip to look for JTAG Blaster, but there are many variants, from super cheap (10€) to several hundred € expensive.
Which one would be suitable ?
And: I already have a TL886 II+ programmer and a seeger J-Link mini EDU, could they do it ?

Martin

[RoGeorge]

I would like to read or program an Altera Max 10 FPGA via the JTAG interface.
...
And: I already have a TL886 II+ programmer and a seeger J-Link mini EDU, could they do it ?

Should work, though I don't have the device and Altera is not specified in the supported devices list.

Even an Arduino can do JTAG (as long as you take care of the voltage levels for less than 5V JTAG targets).  This is a good brief about JTAG:  https://www.fpga4fun.com/JTAG.html, and this is one example of JTAG with Arduino, blog and code:
https://eeandcs.blogspot.com/2015/08/jtagxsvf-library-for-arduino.html
https://github.com/mrjimenez/JTAG

[Wiljan]

Hi,

absolutely no plan of it, until now I only knew lattice PLDs and their programming via the known usb adapter.
I would like to read or program an Altera Max 10 FPGA via the JTAG interface.
I had received the tip to look for JTAG Blaster, but there are many variants, from super cheap (10€) to several hundred € expensive.
Which one would be suitable ?
And: I already have a TL886 II+ programmer and a seeger J-Link mini EDU, could they do it ?

Martin

I got one like this 10 years ago "low cost clone" and it works fine with Quartus II with MAX10 and other Altera / Intel FPGA's
https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Blaster-Altera-CPLD-FPGA-Programmer/dp/B09TQ1RZZL/ref=sr_1_7?crid=2IF6MU1DXYL74

[Scrts]

The cheap $10 ones work fine

[Martin72]

Thank you guys, today I´ve bought one from amazon, will report then..

[bingo600]

The cheap $10 ones work fine

Agree, as long as you don't use Quartus in a "Virtualbox" ...
But directly attached i have had no issues witt the cheap ones (that contains a MCU emulating FTDI + CPLD).
 
I got another clone to work in Vbox ...
One of those that has a FTDI & a CPLD (like the original Altera).
https://www.ebay.com/itm/264295994034
https://www.ebay.com/itm/264066061995


Btw; I'm quite sure it's named USB-Blaster , not JTAG Blaster

/Bingo

[Martin72]

Thank you guys, today I´ve bought one from amazon, will report then..

Get it today..

Then download and installed intel quartus prime light ( huuuuge...programm).
First nothing worked, then a look in the hardware manager shows that there are no driver intalled for the usb blaster.
Installed them manually, now it works.
Using the autodetect function, the FPGA* was proper detected.
Then pressing "examine" and after appx 1min it´s ready.
But when you hit the save file button, the programm crashes.
Must play a little bit around to understand what´s going on.
Or did I download the wrong software....

*)FPGA located at a siglent demoboard for several testsignals.

[Wiljan]

Get it today..

Then download and installed intel quartus prime light ( huuuuge...programm).
First nothing worked, then a look in the hardware manager shows that there are no driver intalled for the usb blaster.
Installed them manually, now it works.
Using the autodetect function, the FPGA* was proper detected.
Then pressing "examine" and after appx 1min it´s ready.
But when you hit the save file button, the programm crashes.
Must play a little bit around to understand what´s going on.
Or did I download the wrong software....

*)FPGA located at a siglent demoboard for several testsignals.

It's normal you have to installed the driver for the USB blaster separate

Yeah all the FPGA software are very big  several giga bytes.
Then you also have to install the support for the actual FPGA families like MAX

And often you will need to have different Quartus versions it you need to support different FPGA's family even from same vendor.

As far you can see the FPGA device ID when connected with the Blaster is good.

You then can read the data back is also good.

When the program crash it might be due to the actual FPGA device famely is not installed or maybe the Quartus version does not support the MAX series or maybe if the FPGA are encrypted.

What version of Quartus did you install?
Have you install any FPGA device family?

[Martin72]

Hi,
I had googled for quartus II and ended up with intel.
And from there the quartus prime lite software.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/software-kit/773998/intel-quartus-prime-lite-edition-design-software-version-22-1-1-for-windows.html?

I installed and started that and then selected Max 10 and went to the programmer part under "Tools".

I had nothing else installed.

[Wiljan]

Your quartus does include the Max device so that's fine.
What windows version do you use?

[Wiljan]

If you are on win 11 there seem to be a problem
https://community.intel.com/t5/Intel-Quartus-Prime-Software/Quartus-crashes-crashes-when-open-dialog-box/td-p/1367638

[Martin72]

Hi,

Windows 10 on all systems here...
I´ll make a pic fron the "crash".

[Martin72]

Crash and report.

[Wiljan]

Not sure why this happens for you.

I do not have your Quartus version installed here on my win10 pc

https://forum.qt.io/topic/143116/qfiledialog-getopenfilename-causing-program-to-crash
Here they disuses a similar problem with the QT  qfiledialog and it seems to make a crash due to the antivirus running on the PC
Do you run antivirus and if so which one?

You could try to install the Quartus on another pc or install an older version of Quartus

I have the 20.1.1 on win10 here with Norton antivirus running and just tried to read out a MAX 10M50DA and save it as a pof file and it did work fine with the clone blaster.

[mathstudi]

Then download and installed intel quartus prime light ( huuuuge...programm).
First nothing worked, then a look in the hardware manager shows that there are no driver intalled for the usb blaster.
Installed them manually, now it works.

Thank you Martin72, my USB Blaster was delivered today. Manually installing the USB drivers also helped with my installation.

The programmer is really big. 26 GB for the lite version. I don't want to know how big the professional version is  .

[mathstudi]

Crash and report.

Same issue here. I use Windows 11 22H2, Build 22621.2283.

[radiolistener]

Yeah all the FPGA software are very big  several giga bytes.

and works very-very slow and have a lot of bugs 

[mtwieg]

Can anyone confirm/deny whether any/all of these clones work with Signaltap?

[BrianHG]

Can anyone confirm/deny whether any/all of these clones work with Signaltap?

Good question.

[Scrts]

I had no problems with SignalTap using the adapter for $10.

[mtwieg]

I had no problems with SignalTap using the adapter for $10.

Which one, specifically? What OS and quartus version are you using?

I looked on Amazon for "USB blaster" and found two listings with reviews. First is this one, which looks similar to the amazon link posted above: https://www.amazon.com/NOYITO-Blaster-CPLD-FPGA-Programmer/dp/B07F5H5LPZ/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2Z537F9YE20JQ&keywords=USB+Blaster&qid=1695904031&sprefix=usb+blaster%2Caps%2C89&sr=8-4
About half the reviews say that simply plugging it into a windows 10 machine causes it to BSOD, not good.

The other hit was this, looks similar to the one Martin72 mentioned in reply #6: https://www.amazon.com/waveshare-USB-Blaster-V2-Programmers/dp/B08CV3L6LF/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
Only three reviews, also doesn't sound good...

[Daixiwen]

I've had no problems using the EEBlaster from Entner Electronics with Quartus and Signaltap but this clone is a bit more expensive than the $10 ones from Amazon.

[ataradov]

I've used SignalTap with this type https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802725721286.html Not this exact seller, since I've bought it ages ago, but this overall design with the white and blue label.

I would assume they are all more or less the same, it is just a dummy FX2LP device and the firmware is loaded by the IDE anyway.