Strange set of Atmel '328 ICs...

Dave Hrynkiw
August 26, 2010

Unlike Sparkfun, who actually manage to find fake Atmel ICs, we just get strange batches.

The Atmel ATMega328 is the power behind the Arduino/Freeduino/*duino, and we have to set up a programming system to burn the venerable Arduino Bootloader into these chips.

We normally use an AVR STK500 in HVSP (high voltage serial programming) mode, as that lets us be absolutely sure the fuses are set correctly and the burn is correct. Interestingly enough, this last batch of chips refused to work with our batch files. Asking the chip's ID often returned 0x01 0x03 0X05 instead of the expected signature.

After spending a day checking to see if the programmer was broken (nope) or if the chips were fake (nope, we think), we did find that they did respond to regular old ICSP (in-circuit serial programming), but only partially.

Digging around, we found some older ATMega328 chips that worked fine, and compared them to this new batch. This troublesome batch has a date code of 1015 (15th week of 2010), and a batch code on the bottom as 9J4302 / 35473d / 1-P1015 e3.

So we re-wrote our batch file burning code to use AVRDude instead of the STK500 command-programmer, and to run it in ICSP mode on the STK500. The key addition is the "-B" part, which slows down the communication a bit. You want it as low as possible for fastest burn times. I tried a "-B 2" on both fuse & programming lines, but that really slowed the process. What's below is what we settled on.

: Set fuse bits, lock bits, voltages
.avrdude -c stk500v2 -i 20 -p m328p -P COM1 -b 115200 -B 1.8 -e -u -U lock:w:0x3f:m -U efuse:w:0x05:m -U hfuse:w:0xDA:m -U lfuse:w:0xFF:m
: Burn & Lock Arduino hex bootloader file
.avrdude -c stk500v2 -p m328p -P COM1 -b 115200 -B 1.1 -U flash:w:%HEXFILE% -U lock:w:0x0f:m

Hope that'll save anybody else from blowing better part of a day figuring out why their Atmel isn't programming normally!

MORE POSTS

April 3, 2020
Rant: Some of us are in this "together" ...

As the crisis continues, we received more and more email notices from suppliers & vendors offering us "assistance" in this "time of need". From Ernie Johannson, Group head of North American Personal & Business Banking, BMO Financial Group (AKA: Bank of Montreal)? An email, titled "We're here to help during COVID-19", with a nondescript mention […]

June 28, 2010
Canada Day - Closed July 1st & 2nd

This just in - our country is awesome. Now, we all know what you're thinking. "Yeah? Well my country is awesome too, and yours didn't even make it to the World Cup!" We certainly can't argue that your country is awesome as well. As for the World Cup... You wanna know what we think of […]

August 18, 2012
New Product: Limerick Edition

I've been wanting to post in limerick, and today I think I'll give it a kick. My co-workers think it's dumb, but I think it's kinda fun. And I'm sure it'll turn out quite slick. In order to avoid some tough restrictions, I won't use limerick for product descriptions. It'd also make some people sick, […]

July 14, 2006
Make 06 Trimet

Eric L. was so kind as to send us a link to a video of his Make 06 Trimet on YouTube. If you want to build your very own Trimet you can get all the parts here, and if you don't have the magazine, you can buy it here. Order both together and get 10% […]

Solarbotics Ltd Logo
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!

Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.