9. Embedded programming¶

This has been a crazy week because of coronavirus problems… I moved back to Milan from Boston so I did not have much time to catch up on the lecture and work on the assignments.

ATtiny Embedded Programming with the Arduino IDE¶

Install Arduino¶

IDE: Integrated Development Environment –> it is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development.

I followed mainly this tutorial to do embedded programming of ATtiny44A microcontroller with the Arduino IDE. I used the Hello Button + LED board created in week 7.

First, since I used a mac, I downloaded both Arduino and FTDI Virtual COM port (VCP) drivers which cause the USB device to appear as an additional COM port available to the PC. I then installed ATtiny support in order to make arduino ATtiny compatible.

Install ATtiny44¶

Once all these are installed, I can select ATtiny by going on “Tools > Board” menu.

The tutorial also said to change the clock to ‘external 20MHZ’, since we have an external 20 MHZ resonator on the Hello Button + LED board. And I also changed the processor setting from ATtiny24 to ATtiny44.

Modify the code¶

I modified the code so that button was identified with pin10 and led with pin6, and selected the USBtinyISP as programmer.

I got an error when uploading.

and here more details:

Arduino: 1.8.12 (Mac OS X), Board: "ATtiny24/44/84, ATtiny44, External 20 MHz"

Sketch uses 656 bytes (16%) of program storage space. Maximum is 4096 bytes.
Global variables use 9 bytes (3%) of dynamic memory, leaving 247 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 256 bytes.
/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -C/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -pattiny44 -cusbtiny -Uflash:w:/var/folders/rq/n3ngbp397fd4qzqyv2jbvnhr0000gn/T/arduino_build_321284/helloboardled.ino.hex:i 

avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/Users/martinaferracane/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port                    : usb
         Using Programmer              : usbtiny
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found USBtinyISP, bus:device: 020:002
         AVR Part                      : ATtiny44
         Chip Erase delay              : 4500 us
         PAGEL                         : P00
         BS2                           : P00
         RESET disposition             : possible i/o
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65     6     4    0 no        256    4      0  4000  4500 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6    32    0 yes      4096   64     64  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  9000  9000 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : USBtiny
         Description     : USBtiny simple USB programmer, https://learn.adafruit.com/usbtinyisp
avrdude: programmer operation not supported

avrdude: Using SCK period of 10 usec
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

An error occurred while uploading the sketch

This report would have more information with
"Show verbose output during compilation"
option enabled in File -> Preferences.

This might be the same issue I had when triyng to recognize the USBtinyISP on my mac… So I tried with a different computer with linux and this time it worked.

Try to fix avr problem¶

I made some research on the avrdude problem. It seems many people have this issue.. Did anyone manage to fix it?

Quite weird… I turned the cable and tried to do ‘burn bootloader’ and it worked… then I tried to upload the code and it worked again.. but I think the board now doesn’t work anymore as now it blinks in a weird way! It seems like there is not enough power getting to it.

Arduino as ISP¶

As I got an arduino shipped home and by board did not seem to work anymore, I wanted to check out if Arduino worked as ISP.

The uploading worked but the hello board acts still weird.. I tried to burn bootloader again using arduino as ISP but got another error.

Arduino: 1.8.12 (Mac OS X), Board: "Arduino Uno"

/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/bin/avrdude -C/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf -v -patmega328p -cstk500v1 -P/dev/cu.usbmodem14101 -b19200 -e -Ulock:w:0x3F:m -Uefuse:w:0xFD:m -Uhfuse:w:0xDE:m -Ulfuse:w:0xFF:m 

avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"
         User configuration file is "/Users/martinaferracane/.avrduderc"
         User configuration file does not exist or is not a regular file, skipping

         Using Port                    : /dev/cu.usbmodem14101
         Using Programmer              : stk500v1
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 19200
         AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : STK500
         Description     : Atmel STK500 Version 1.x firmware
         Hardware Version: 2
         Firmware Version: 1.18
         Topcard         : Unknown
         Vtarget         : 0.0 V
         Varef           : 0.0 V
         Oscillator      : Off
         SCK period      : 0.1 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Error while burning bootloader.
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

This report would have more information with
"Show verbose output during compilation"
option enabled in File -> Preferences.

Data Sheet ATtiny44¶

I have not been able to go through the data sheet in detail yet. I chose to have a look at the ATtiny44 datasheet.