USBPicProg - An USB Microchip PIC programmer

Friday, 02 July 2010 19:59

USBPicProg is an USB in circuit programmer for Microchip PIC processors: the PICs that have been implemented can be found in the supported devices section. The hardware is as simple as possible: the current version only contains one PIC18F2550, some mosfets, and besides the connectors a hand full of passive components. The design of the hardware is open and free of charge for the people who have their own PCB production facilities. USBPicProg uses its own communication protocol as well as its own programming software. It consists of three main components which can be found on the download page:

Hardware: a PCB design which contains the necessary components to interface from the USB port to a Microchip ICSP (in circuit serial programming) header;
Firmware: the software that runs on the processor on the PCB. It contains the USB framework, and high and low level functions for PIC in circuit programming.The firmware can also be divided into two parts: The bootloader (Microchip Picdem bootloader) has to be loaded only once, after that this part of the firmware can be upgraded through the usbpicprog interface. The usbpicprog part of the firmware contains the actual programming algorithms for all the implemented PIC devices;
Software: a wxWidgets (version 2.9.0 or later!) GUI based (cross platform) application to communicate with the usbpicprog hardware/firmware. This application is known to function well on GNU/Linux (but it is cross platform).

For more information about USBPicProg click here.