ATTINY85 programming in Altium Designer ?

[Rosky]

I wanted to do something simple in Altium Designer to see how it works. So i decided to use a ATTINY85 to flash a LED.  Simple ..i thought.
I have searched in the tutorial videos on live.altium.com on google on youtube but couldn't find something simple like programming a PIC or an ATMEL on the Altium Designer. I know that doing something so simple is like using a nuklear bomb to kill a fly but it should be duable. I could only find the fancy FPGA stuff.
Do you know any tutorials out there or how to do it?

Thank you,

[David_AVD]

Use something more suitable for writing firmware and leave Altium for the schematic and board design.

I use MPLAB for PICs and Atmel Studio for Atmel devices.

[enz]

What makes you think that Altium is capable to do this?

It is a schematic/PCB Design tool and you can do FPGA develoment with it (at least in some way). But it is in no way a compiler.

It's the same as trying to use a C-Compiler for PCB-Design.

[Rosky]

I use Atmel Studio 6.1 .
Yes i tried to find a way to load a hex in the component into Altium so i can simulate the whole board but ...couldn't .
@enz How can it simulate the circuit if it can't simulate the cip?

[dannyf]

couldn't find something simple like programming a PIC or an ATMEL on the Altium Designer.

You probably looked at the wrong place. It is in the same section of tutorials that talked about driving your toasters, or using your watch to dig a hole or using your multimeter to amplify a bug, etc.

It is definitely there.

[Rosky]

You are a real mean one dannyf. Lots of useless info thanks.
Why did i ask if anyone know something? because: On the Altium page it sais
"Build portable functionality focused application code with full featured Embedded software compilers and debuggers"
And in the tutorials talks about c code and exports too.

[Rufus]

It is a schematic/PCB Design tool and you can do FPGA develoment with it (at least in some way). But it is in no way a compiler.

Altium designer includes several C (and some C++) compilers. It is a complete development platform for systems on FPGAs including various soft processors for which compilers are included and various FPGA implemented peripherals with driver and application firmware support.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Altium designer includes several C (and some C++) compilers.

[dannyf]

Altium designer includes several C (and some C++) compilers.

and don't forget about those toasters too,

[Bored@Work]

mmmmm buttered lightly toasted toast.

If you want to do something properly then use the proper tools to do it properly. If you don't want to do something properly then why bother doing it all?

Altium will tell you their C/C++ compilers are proper tools. And don't forget the C-to-hardware compiler. According to Altium a proper tool. Of course, you need to take Altium's definition of proper into account.

[Rufus]

Altium designer includes several C (and some C++) compilers.

Their vision was that all electronics would be built as systems on FPGAs so an end-end design platform including schematic, schematic and HDL FPGA design entry, soft core processor and peripheral IP with compiler driver/library support, simulation and PCB design was everything you need and would sell like hot cakes.

They achieved that end-end platform and it is impressive. You can plonk down a processor and peripheral cores on a high level schematic. Write a few lines of code to connect the drivers/libraries for the cores, press a button and the whole thing is compiled/fitted, downloaded to target hardware and works.

The problem was as FPGAs improved so did everything else so the relative benefit of using them stayed the same and all electronics didn't end up being systems on FPGAs. That and they couldn't afford the effort to keep current with the FPGA vendor tool and part updates so people who really needed to use FPGAs didn't have support for the parts they wanted to use.

They still own http://www.tasking.com/ who I believe are a reasonably well respected compiler vendor.

[DutchGert]

I wanted to do something simple in Altium Designer to see how it works. So i decided to use a ATTINY85 to flash a LED.  Simple ..i thought.
I have searched in the tutorial videos on live.altium.com on google on youtube but couldn't find something simple like programming a PIC or an ATMEL on the Altium Designer. I know that doing something so simple is like using a nuklear bomb to kill a fly but it should be duable. I could only find the fancy FPGA stuff.
Do you know any tutorials out there or how to do it?

Thank you,

I understand your confusion. It seems like a total solution for everything if u reed the Altium website but is is not, even if they say it is .

To put it simple:
Altium is a very decent PCB design tool. It has great library tooling, schematic capture and pcb layout tools and the 3D capabilities work a treat.

For C development:
Use the best u can find, for PIC's MPLAB, Atmel Studio for Atmel's, the Ti software for the 320 DSP's and MSP430 MCU's etc etc.

For VHDL/Verilog:
Same story, use Xilinx tools for Xilinx FPGA's and Altera for Altera FPGA's.

Thats it in a nutshell, use the best tool for each individual job. A all-in-one solution from Architecture to PCB with both Hardware and Software development capability simply doesnt excist or doenst work near as well as individual tools (in this case).

[seanhaz]

you can program them using an arduino
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1695

[Stonent]

Somehow I picture Altium popping up like Talkie Toaster, "Would you like me to compile something for you?" "Are you sure?



Would you like some toast?

[Rosky]

@DutchGert just wanted to add that a program that is an almost solution to this is Proteus 8.(almost because it said it can do it ... but crashes).

 I have tried Proteus Demo but it crashes even when trying to simulate it's own example. The Proteus forum is full of this same crash posts and they official answer is that it crashes because is the demo or cracked version but it doesn't crash on the original highly priced (for me) version. (400 Euro for students)
Wouldn't like to give that much money for a product that is clearly suspicious:P

[EEVblog]

Altium does not support Atmel microcontrollers.
Altium's embedded tools are based on the Tasking C compilers, and there are the only parts supported:
http://www.tasking.com/support/
Although I don't recall if Altium Designer supports all the parts out-the-box that Tasking supports anyway, I suspect not.

[EEVblog]

Altium will tell you their C/C++ compilers are proper tools.

Actually the Tasking compilers within Altium are top-notch and robust tools, used extensively in the automotive industry. Still developed by the very sizable (because of strict local employee protection laws) Tasking group in the Netherlands. Tasking was Altium's key acquisition into the embedded space after their public float back in 2001 for $70M+
Too bad they just pissed that away by never promoting them and trying to only sell it integrated into Altium Designer, which was of course was a complete flop along with all the FPGA stuff.

[EEVblog]

They achieved that end-end platform and it is impressive. You can plonk down a processor and peripheral cores on a high level schematic. Write a few lines of code to connect the drivers/libraries for the cores, press a button and the whole thing is compiled/fitted, downloaded to target hardware and works.

Yes, they did produce the dream package, and it was very impressive in many ways.
Too bad that only extended to simple demo stuff. Once you tried to do anything really serious with it, or support modern parts, it was either useless, or more trouble than it was worth.
Any experienced user could sniff this is mile away, and is why the whole concept was a complete flop.

[Rosky]

Altium does not support Atmel microcontrollers.
Altium's embedded tools are based on the Tasking C compilers, and there are the only parts supported:
http://www.tasking.com/support/
Although I don't recall if Altium Designer supports all the parts out-the-box that Tasking supports anyway, I suspect not.

Thank you .