Abstract
Chip programming is an important part of the production process of electronic products, and the efficiency of programming is a key concern for customers. The efficiency of programming is closely related to the programming speed of the chip. What factors influence the programming speed of chips?
1. Different Manufacturers’ Chips
The differences between chip manufacturers can lead to variations in the manufacturing processes of the chips. This directly results in differences in chip programming speeds.
In actual tests, the writing speed of Gigadevice’s 8MB SPI Flash chip only takes 12 seconds, while the same capacity chip from Winbond takes 32 seconds. From the data sheets of these two chips, it can be seen that the standard page write time for GD (Gigadevice) chips is about 0.4ms, while Winbond’s page write standard time is 0.7ms.
As shown in the chip’s data sheet, the data regarding chip read and write speeds is illustrated in screenshots 1.1 and 1.2:
Figure1.1 GigadeviceChip Page Write Speed Table
Figure 1.2 Winbond Chip Page Write Speed Table
2. Size of the Programming File, Not the Chip Size
For the same product, will there be a significant difference in programming time due to different chip capacities? Does a larger capacity mean a longer programming time? In chip testing, larger capacity chips do not necessarily take longer to program. For example, when programming an 8MB capacity chip and a 16MB capacity chip with the same program (file smaller than 8MB), the time taken is about the same.
3. Chip Programming Methods
For different brands and types of chips, there are multiple programming methods available. For instance, some MCU chips provide a JTAG interface for programming, while others offer a UART interface for programming. The JTAG interface is significantly faster than the UART interface. Additionally, some SPI Flash chips provide single-line and four-line programming methods. Their corresponding waveform diagrams are shown in figures 3.1 and 3.2:
Figure 3.1 Single-Line Programming Timing Diagram
Figure 3.2 Four-Line Programming Timing Diagram
From the waveform diagrams, it can be seen that writing one byte of data with four-line programming only requires 2 clock cycles, while single-line programming requires 8 clock cycles, making four-line programming 4 times more efficient than single-line programming!
4. Hardware Differences of the Programmer
The hardware characteristics of the programmer have a significant impact on the programming speed of the chip. In actual testing, different programmers can have programming times that vary by more than half for the same chip. The following are actual test record data.
5. Differences in Programmer Channels
Existing programmers include single-channel programmers with one-to-one connections and multi-channel programmers with one-to-many connections. When customers need to program a large number of chips, they generally choose multi-channel programmers, as this can significantly improve efficiency. Comparing a single-channel programmer with an eight-channel programmer, the programming time of a single-channel programmer is eight times that of the eight-channel programmer, meaning that switching to an eight-channel programmer can increase efficiency by eight times!
Figure 5.1 Single-Channel Programmer
Figure 5.2 Multi-Channel Programmer
Conclusion:
The speed of chip programming is influenced by various factors including the chip itself and the speed of the programmer. If you want to program chips quickly, please choose the appropriate method and the suitable programmer.
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