Need help finding solution to programming older Xilinx parts on win10 using Digilent JTAG-USB cable

[Andrew Allman]

I was recently pulled in to help our production team with an issue they are having programming Xilinx CPLDs on an older product.  It turns out they have been using a Digilent parallel port JTAG adapter (labelled "JTAG3 with SPI") and an old version of Impact on a windows XP PC.  

Apparently, the last working parallel programming cable/adapter bit the dust today.  Rather than try to troubleshoot the issue, I decided it was time to let these parallel port adapters retire.  They've had a long career and we happen to have lots of Digilent JTAG-USB and XUP JTAG-USB adapters on hand.  Unfortunately, I've had zero luck getting the latest version of Impact (14.7?) to work on a windows 10 PC with either style USB adapter.  The Xilinx part I'm trying to program/configure is a XC95216.  

I know that Xilinx stopped support for Impact on any OS after Win7, but I was hoping to get it working anyway.  I can get the application to run, but as soon as I try to do anything interesting (e.g. program the part) the application simply disappears with no error message.

Are there any suggestions for getting this setup to work?

If not, are there recommendations for other applications that could run on win10 using either the JTAG-USB or XUP JTAG-USB cable to program this older Xilinx CPLD?  We only need to be able to load a .jed file and verify.  Even a command-line tool would be fine (maybe even preferred).

Thanks!!!

Andy

[asmi]

ISE 14.7 has troubles running under Windows 10 and 11, so much so that it's recommended to consider running it under Linux. If all you're going to use this PC is for programming, than OS doesn't really matter as the actual ISE (and Impact) GUI looks and works the same way on both platforms.

Edited July 6, 2023 by asmi

[Andrew Allman]

8 hours ago, asmi said:

ISE 14.7 has troubles running under Windows 10 and 11, so much so that it's recommended to consider running it under Linux. If all you're going to use this PC is for programming, than OS doesn't really matter as the actual ISE (and Impact) GUI looks and works the same way on both platforms.

Thanks for the quick response!!  

I think that might be viable if we can run Impact on WSL2.  Are there any applications besides Impact that can program these older parts?

[asmi]

32 minutes ago, Andrew Allman said:

I think that might be viable if we can run Impact on WSL2.

I'm not sure if it's going to work because it's a GUI application.

That said, I googled around a bit and found this thread containing instructions on how to install ISE LabTools onto Win10: https://support.xilinx.com/s/question/0D52E00006hpKWFSA2/xilinx-tools-impact-64?language=en_US Give it a try and see if you can get it to work. I verified that the download link mentioned there works (though you will have to login and verify export control stuff, as usual for software downloads), but I didn't actually install it because I don't really need it for the reasons mentioned below.

42 minutes ago, Andrew Allman said:

Are there any applications besides Impact that can program these older parts?

I work with 7 series (and above) FPGAs myself so I'm not really sure how things were back in ISE time, so I'm not aware of any. Maybe someone more informed will pitch in and let us know otherwise.

[Andrew Allman]

3 minutes ago, asmi said:

I'm not sure if it's going to work because it's a GUI application.

That said, I googled around a bit and found this thread containing instructions on how to install ISE LabTools onto Win10: https://support.xilinx.com/s/question/0D52E00006hpKWFSA2/xilinx-tools-impact-64?language=en_US Give it a try and see if you can get it to work. I verified that the download link mentioned there works (though you will have to login and verify export control stuff, as usual for software downloads), but I didn't actually install it because I don't really need it for the reasons mentioned below.

I work with 7 series (and above) FPGAs myself so I'm not really sure how things were back in ISE time, so I'm not aware of any. Maybe someone more informed will pitch in and let us know otherwise.

Thanks again!  I will give that a try next.

I ran across this video that walked through setting up ISE using oracle virtualbox.  There was a comment that provided the same workaround to get ISE 14.7 to run natively in windows 10 (same instructions detailed in your link).  I also ran across the xc3sprog project (https://xc3sprog.sourceforge.net/) which might also be a good solution if I can figure out the right cable driver for something we have on hand (JTAG-USB or XUP JTAG-USB).

 

[zygot]

15 hours ago, asmi said:

ISE 14.7 has troubles running under Windows 10 and 11, so much so that it's recommended to consider running it under Linux.

I use ISE 14.7 on Win10. Impact doesn't work. Anything requiring JTAG connectivity doesn't work.  I just use the Adept Utilities for Windows to do configuration. I only use ISE on WIn10 with Spartan devices. I would imagine that you can target an XC9500 device with the Adept Utility by modifying a few lines in the device text file. Who knows, perhaps support for those devices is already there. [edit] I just checked jtscdvclist.txt, which is where the Adept Utility for Windows keeps it's database of supported devices, and XC95$XL is listed, so this should be all you need to do configuration. Note, this is the file where you can add unsupported devices, like the Artix A50T, which is what I've done.

Be careful of archived versions of ISE on the AMD/Xilinx website; I tried their version of 14.7 only to find that Spartan 3 devices weren't supported. I installed ISE on Win10 from a really old DVD ( remember when you could fit the Linux and Windows tool installers on hard media?

Installation of ISE on a modern version of Linux may not be trivial as most recent ones have abandoned 32-bit support. Trying to find the correct version of library dependents can be a long slog. I haven't tried installing ISE on any version of Linux that I run. Centos 7 might be worth a try as it uses an older kernel version. @asmi, any recommendations or installation advice from your Linux ISE install experience?

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by zygot