Programmer for custom board

[federico.massimi]

Hi, I have a doubt, but with a JTAG-HS2 programmer and Adept 2 software. I can program all boards with a JTAG interface or just the digilent ones.
Let me explain better, I have a custom board, a Xilinx FPGA and a JTAG interface, can I also use JTAG-HS2 and Adept 2 to program also this board?

[Kvass]

As far as I know, as long as you made the JTAG interface on your custom board to match the HS2 pinout, the Adept 2 should recognize the HS2 chip as the "hardware server" and you should be able to see your FPGA and configure it. I use the HS2 programmer to program boards with FPGA parts not from Digilent all the time.

[zygot]

The tools will recognize any of the Digilent JTAG cables, whether connected to a target device or not.

As to whether you can program any Xilinx device using the Adept tools depends.
- Make sure that the cable and the JTAG interface are electrically compatible
- Make sure that the pin assignments are compatible. I've resorted to making adapters to connect HSx cables to non-compatible JTAG headers that work
- The Adept tools don't support every device ID that spans every device that Xilinx makes. Fortunately, the Adept tools are written so that you can add new device support by modifying a text file. I've also done this for using the Windows Adept Utility to program FPGA devices that Digilent doesn't support by default.

The cables, as do the asic modules that Digilent used to sell, work with any Xilinx device. It doesn't have to be a Digilent board.

When working with multiple targets I find the Adept Utility for Windows to be much easier to work with for configuration than Vivado Hardware Manager. Of course, if you want to use the ILA or VIO interface then you need to use Vivado Hardware Manager. Edited November 21, 2023 by zygot