We have two CPLDs on a board (Altera EPM7256A and Xilinx XCR3064XL) and would like to program them with a single tool. To complicate things further, the tool should work in Linux. The download cable we use is Xilinx Parallel Cable III, but if this is a real problem, it can be replaced by something else.
It seems there are no tools which would do this without some patching. I have been thinking of taking the Altera JAM player and patching it for the Xilinx cable. This should be quite straightforward, as only a few things need to be changed in the jamstub.c. (BTW, has anybody any experience on compiling the JAM player with gcc?)
Then the workflow would be:
- Altera: Quartus II Web Edition -> .jam -> JAM player
- Xilinx: ISE WebPack iMpact -> .jam -> JAM player
The big question, however, is: does it work? I have no doubt about the Altera path, as JAM is invented by Altera. But what about the Xilinx JAM compatibility. iMpact seems to be able to produce either .svf or .jam files, but does either of these work reliably (svf throuth svf2jam) with the JAM player?
On the Xilinx site I found something on the need of patching the JAM player. Is this enough, or is there still something else?
TIA,
- Ville