AVRDUDE

A program for download/uploading AVR microcontroller flash and eeprom.

For AVRDUDE, Version 5.1, 13 January 2006.

by Brian S. Dean
Send comments on AVRDUDE to [email protected].
Use http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=avrdude to report bugs.
Copyright
c 2003,2005 Brian S. Dean

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the
copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the con-
ditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed
under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another lan-
guage, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice
may be stated in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation.
 i

Table of Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 History and Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Command Line Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1 Option Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 Example Command Line Invocations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Terminal Mode Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1 Terminal Mode Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2 Terminal Mode Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

4 Configuration File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1 AVRDUDE Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2 Programmer Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3 Part Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.1 Instruction Format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.4 Other Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Appendix A Platform Dependent Information

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.1 Unix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.1.1 Unix Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.1.1.1 FreeBSD Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.1.1.2 Linux Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.1.2 Unix Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.1.2.1 FreeBSD Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.1.2.2 Linux Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.1.3 Unix Port Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.1.4 Unix Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.2 Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.2.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.2.2 Configuration Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.2.1 Configuration file names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.2.2 How AVRDUDE finds the configuration files. . . . . . . . 23
A.2.3 Port Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.3.1 Serial Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.3.2 Parallel Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.4 Using the parallel port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
A.2.4.1 Windows NT/2K/XP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A.2.4.2 Windows 95/98 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A.2.5 Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A.2.6 Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
 ii

Appendix B Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Chapter 1: Introduction 1

1 Introduction
AVRDUDE - AVR Downloader Uploader - is a program for downloading and uploading
the on-chip memories of Atmel’s AVR microcontrollers. It can program the Flash and
EEPROM, and where supported by the serial programming protocol, it can program fuse
and lock bits. AVRDUDE also supplies a direct instruction mode allowing one to issue any
programming instruction to the AVR chip regardless of whether AVRDUDE implements
that specific feature of a particular chip.
AVRDUDE can be used effectively via the command line to read or write all chip memory
types (eeprom, flash, fuse bits, lock bits, signature bytes) or via an interactive (terminal)
mode. Using AVRDUDE from the command line works well for programming the entire
memory of the chip from the contents of a file, while interactive mode is useful for exploring
memory contents, modifing individual bytes of eeprom, programming fuse/lock bits, etc.
AVRDUDE supports the following basic programmer types: Atmel’s STK500, Atmel’s
AVRISP and AVRISP mkII devices, Atmel’s JTAG ICE (both mkI and mkII), appnote
avr910, appnote avr109 (including the AVR Butterfly), serial bit-bang adapters, and the
PPI (parallel port interface). PPI represents a class of simple programmers where the
programming lines are directly connected to the PC parallel port. Several pin configurations
exist for several variations of the PPI programmers, and AVRDUDE can be be configured
to work with them by either specifying the appropriate programmer on the command line
or by creating a new entry in its configuration file. All that’s usually required for a new
entry is to tell AVRDUDE which pins to use for each programming function.
A number of equally simple bit-bang programming adapters that connect to a serial port
are supported as well, among them the popular Ponyprog serial adapter, and the DASA
and DASA3 adapters that used to be supported by uisp(1). Note that these adapters are
meant to be attached to a physical serial port. Connecting to a serial port emulated on top
of USB is likely to not work at all, or to work abysmally slow.
The STK500, JTAG ICE, avr910, and avr109/butterfly use the serial port to communi-
cate with the PC. The STK500, JTAG ICE, and avr910 contain on-board logic to control
the programming of the target device. The avr109 bootloader implements a protocol sim-
ilar to avr910, but is actually implemented in the boot area of the target’s flash ROM, as
opposed to being an external device. The fundamental difference between the two types lies
in the protocol used to control the programmer. The avr910 protocol is very simplistic and
can easily be used as the basis for a simple, home made programer since the firmware is
available online. On the other hand, the STK500 protocol is more robust and complicated
and the firmware is not openly available. The JTAG ICE also uses a serial communication
protocol which is similar to the STK500 firmware version 2 one. However, as the JTAG
ICE is intented to allow on-chip debugging as well as memory programming, the protocol is
more sophisticated. (The JTAG ICE mkII protocol can also be run on top of USB.) Only
the memory programming functionality of the JTAG ICE is supported by AVRDUDE.

1.1 History and Credits

AVRDUDE was written by Brian S. Dean under the name of AVRPROG to run on the
FreeBSD Operating System. Brian renamed the software to be called AVRDUDE when
interest grew in a Windows port of the software so that the name did not conflict with
AVRPROG.EXE which is the name of Atmel’s Windows programming software.
Chapter 1: Introduction 2

The AVRDUDE source now resides in the public CVS repository on savannah.gnu.org
(http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/avrdude/), where it continues to be enhanced and
ported to other systems. In addition to FreeBSD, AVRDUDE now runs on Linux and Win-
dows. The developers behind the porting effort primarily were Ted Roth, Eric Weddington,
and Joerg Wunsch.
And in the spirit of many open source projects, this manual also draws on the work
of others. The initial revision was composed of parts of the original Unix manual page
written by Joerg Wunsch, the original web site documentation by Brian Dean, and from
the comments describing the fields in the AVRDUDE configuration file by Brian Dean. The
texi formatting was modeled after that of the Simulavr documentation by Ted Roth.
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 3

2 Command Line Options

2.1 Option Descriptions

AVRDUDE is a command line tool, used as follows:

avrdude -p partno options ...

Command line options are used to control AVRDUDE’s behaviour. The following options
are recognized:

-p partno
This is the only mandatory option and it tells AVRDUDE what type of part
(MCU) that is connected to the programmer. The partno parameter is the
part’s id listed in the configuration file. Specify -p ? to list all parts in the
configuration file. If a part is unknown to AVRDUDE, it means that there
is no config file entry for that part, but it can be added to the configuration
file if you have the Atmel datasheet so that you can enter the programming
specifications. Currently, the following MCU types are understood:
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 4

c128 AT90CAN128
pwm2 AT90PWM2
pwm3 AT90PWM3
1200 AT90S1200
2313 AT90S2313
2333 AT90S2333
2343 AT90S2343 (*)
4414 AT90S4414
4433 AT90S4433
4434 AT90S4434
8515 AT90S8515
8535 AT90S8535
m103 ATmega103
m128 ATmega128
m1280 ATmega1280
m1281 ATmega1281
m16 ATmega16
m161 ATmega161
m162 ATmega162
m163 ATmega163
m164 ATmega164
m169 ATmega169
m32 ATmega32
m324 ATmega324
m329 ATmega329
m3290 ATmega3290
m48 ATmega48
m64 ATmega64
m640 ATmega640
m644 ATmega644
m649 ATmega649
m6490 ATmega6490
m8 ATmega8
m8515 ATmega8515
m8535 ATmega8535
m88 ATmega88
t12 ATtiny12
t13 ATtiny13
t15 ATtiny15
t2313 ATtiny2313
t25 ATtiny25
t26 ATtiny26
t45 ATtiny45
t85 ATtiny85

(*) The AT90S2323 and ATtiny22 use the same algorithm.

Chapter 2: Command Line Options 5

-b baudrate
Override the RS-232 connection baud rate specified in the respective program-
mer’s entry of the configuration file.

-B bitclock
Specify the bit clock period for the JTAG interface (JTAG ICE only). The
value is a floating-point number in microseconds. The default value of the
JTAG ICE results in about 1 microsecond bit clock period, suitable for target
MCUs running at 4 MHz clock and above. Unlike certain parameters in the
STK500, the JTAG ICE resets all its parameters to default values when the
programming software signs off from the ICE, so for MCUs running at lower
clock speeds, this parameter must be specified on the command-line.

-c programmer-id
Specify the programmer to be used. AVRDUDE knows about several common
programmers. Use this option to specify which one to use. The programmer-id
parameter is the programmer’s id listed in the configuration file. Specify -c ? to
list all programmers in the configuration file. If you have a programmer that is
unknown to AVRDUDE, and the programmer is controlled via the PC parallel
port, there’s a good chance that it can be easily added to the configuration
file without any code changes to AVRDUDE. Simply copy an existing entry
and change the pin definitions to match that of the unknown programmer.
Currently, the following programmer ids are understood and supported:

abcmini ABCmini Board, aka Dick Smith HOTCHIP

alf Nightshade ALF-PgmAVR, http://nightshade.homeip.net/
avr109 Atmel AppNote AVR109 Boot Loader
avr910 Atmel Low Cost Serial Programmer
avr911 Atmel AppNote AVR911 AVROSP (an alias for avr109)
avrisp Atmel AVR ISP (an alias for stk500)
avrispv2 Atmel AVR ISP, running a version 2.x firmware (an alias for
stk500v2)
avrispmkII
Atmel AVR ISP mkII (alias for stk500v2)
avrispmk2
Atmel AVR ISP mkII (alias for stk500v2)
bascom Bascom SAMPLE programming cable
bsd Brian Dean’s Programmer, http://www.bsdhome.com/avrdude/
butterfly
Atmel Butterfly Development Board
dt006 Dontronics DT006

jtagmkI
jtag1 Atmel JTAG ICE mkI, running at 115200 Bd
jtag1slow
Atmel JTAG ICE mkI, running at 19200 Bd
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 6

jtagmkII
jtag2slow
Atmel JTAG ICE mkII (default speed 19200 Bd)
jtag2fast
Atmel JTAG ICE mkII, running at 115200 Bd
jtag2 Same as before.
pavr Jason Kyle’s pAVR Serial Programmer
picoweb Picoweb Programming Cable, http://www.picoweb.net/
pony-stk200
Pony Prog STK200
sp12 Steve Bolt’s Programmer
stk200 STK200
stk500 Atmel STK500
stk500v2 Atmel STK500, running a version 2.x firmware
-C config-file
Use the specified config file for configuration data. This file contains all pro-
grammer and part definitions that AVRDUDE knows about. If you have a
programmer or part that AVRDUDE does not know about, you can add it to
the config file (be sure and submit a patch back to the author so that it can
be incorporated for the next version). If not specified, AVRDUDE reads the
configuration file from /usr/local/etc/avrdude.conf (FreeBSD and Linux). See
Appendix A for the method of searching for the configuration file for Windows.
-D Disable auto erase for flash. When the -U option with flash memory is speci-
fied, avrdude will perform a chip erase before starting any of the programming
operations, since it generally is a mistake to program the flash without per-
forming an erase first. This option disables that. However, to remain backward
compatible, the -i, and -m options automatically disable the auto erase feature.
-e Causes a chip erase to be executed. This will reset the contents of the flash
ROM and EEPROM to the value ‘0xff’, and is basically a prerequisite command
before the flash ROM can be reprogrammed again. The only exception would
be if the new contents would exclusively cause bits to be programmed from the
value ‘1’ to ‘0’. Note that in order to reprogram EERPOM cells, no explicit
prior chip erase is required since the MCU provides an auto-erase cycle in that
case before programming the cell.
-E exitspec [,...]
By default, AVRDUDE leaves the parallel port in the same state at exit as it
has been found at startup. This option modifies the state of the ‘/RESET’
and ‘Vcc’ lines the parallel port is left at, according to the exitspec arguments
provided, as follows:
reset The ‘/RESET’ signal will be left activated at program exit, that
is it will be held low, in order to keep the MCU in reset state
afterwards. Note in particular that the programming algorithm for
the AT90S1200 device mandates that the ‘/RESET’ signal is active
before powering up the MCU, so in case an external power supply
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 7

is used for this MCU type, a previous invocation of AVRDUDE

with this option specified is one of the possible ways to guarantee
this condition.
noreset The ‘/RESET’ line will be deactivated at program exit, thus al-
lowing the MCU target program to run while the programming
hardware remains connected.
vcc This option will leave those parallel port pins active (i. e. high)
that can be used to supply ‘Vcc’ power to the MCU.
novcc This option will pull the ‘Vcc’ pins of the parallel port down at
program exit.
Multiple exitspec arguments can be separated with commas.
-F Normally, AVRDUDE tries to verify that the device signature read from the
part is reasonable before continuing. Since it can happen from time to time that
a device has a broken (erased or overwritten) device signature but is otherwise
operating normally, this options is provided to override the check.
-n No-write - disables actually writing data to the MCU (useful for debugging
AVRDUDE).
-P port Use port to identify the device to which the programmer is attached. Normally,
the default parallel port is used, but if the programmer type normally connects
to the serial port, the default serial port will be used. See Appendix A, Platform
Dependent Information, to find out the default port names for your platform.
If you need to use a different parallel or serial port, use this option to specify
the alternate port name.
For the JTAG ICE mkII, if AVRDUDE has been built with libusb support, port
may alternatively be specified as usb[:serialno]. In that case, the JTAG ICE
mkII will be looked up on USB. If serialno is also specified, it will be matched
against the serial number read from any JTAG ICE mkII found on USB. The
match is done after stripping any existing colons from the given serial number,
and right-to-left, so only the least significant bytes from the serial number
need to be given. For a trick how to find out the serial numbers of all JTAG
ICEs attached to USB, see Section 2.2 [Example Command Line Invocations],
page 10.
As the AVRISP mkII device can only be talked to over USB, the very same
method of specifying the port is required there.
-q Disable (or quell) output of the progress bar while reading or writing to the
device. Specify it a second time for even quieter operation.
-u Disables the default behaviour of reading out the fuses three times before pro-
gramming, then verifying at the end of programming that the fuses have not
changed. If you want to change fuses you will need to specify this option, as
avrdude will see the fuses have changed (even though you wanted to) and will
change them back for your "saftey". This option was designed to prevent cases
of fuse bits magically changing (usually called safemode).
-t Tells AVRDUDE to enter the interactive “terminal” mode instead of up- or
downloading files. See below for a detailed description of the terminal mode.
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 8

-U memtype :op :filename [:format ]

Perform a memory operation, equivalent to specifing the ‘-m’, ‘-i’ or ‘-o’, and
‘-f’ options, except that multiple ‘-U’ optins can be specified in order to operate
on mulitple memories on the same command-line invocation. The memtype field
specifies the memory type to operate on. Use the ‘-v’ option on the command
line or the part command from terminal mode to display all the memory types
supported by a particular device. Typically, a device’s memory configuration at
least contains the memory types flash and eeprom. All memory types currently
known are:
calibration
One or more bytes of RC oscillator calibration data.
eeprom The EEPROM of the device.
efuse The extended fuse byte.
flash The flash ROM of the device.
fuse The fuse byte in devices that have only a single fuse byte.
hfuse The high fuse byte.
lfuse The low fuse byte.
lock The lock byte.
signature
The three device signature bytes (device ID).
The op field specifies what operation to perform:
r read the specified device memory and write to the specified file
w read the specified file and write it to the specified device memory
v read the specified device memory and the specified file and perform
a verify operation
The filename field indicates the name of the file to read or write. The format
field is optional and contains the format of the file to read or write. Possible
values are:
i Intel Hex
s Motorola S-record
r raw binary; little-endian byte order, in the case of the flash ROM
data
m immediate mode; actual byte values specified on the command line,
seperated by commas or spaces in place of the filename field of the
‘-i’, ‘-o’, or ‘-U’ options. This is useful for programming fuse bytes
without having to create a single-byte file or enter terminal mode.
If the number specified begins with 0x, it is treated as a hex value.
If the number otherwise begins with a leading zero (0) it is treated
as octal. Otherwise, the value is treated as decimal.
a auto detect; valid for input only, and only if the input is not pro-
vided at stdin.
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 9

The default is to use auto detection for input files, and raw binary format for
output files.
Note that if filename contains a colon, the format field is no longer optional
since the filename part following the colon would otherwise be misinterpreted
as format.
-v Enable verbose output.
-V Disable automatic verify check when uploading data.
-y Tells AVRDUDE to use the last four bytes of the connected parts’ EEPROM
memory to track the number of times the device has been erased. When this
option is used and the ‘-e’ flag is specified to generate a chip erase, the previous
counter will be saved before the chip erase, it is then incremented, and written
back after the erase cycle completes. Presumably, the device would only be
erased just before being programmed, and thus, this can be utilized to give an
indication of how many erase-rewrite cycles the part has undergone. Since the
FLASH memory can only endure a finite number of erase-rewrite cycles, one
can use this option to track when a part is nearing the limit. The typical limit
for Atmel AVR FLASH is 1000 cycles. Of course, if the application needs the
last four bytes of EEPROM memory, this option should not be used.
-Y cycles
Instructs AVRDUDE to initialize the erase-rewrite cycle counter residing at the
last four bytes of EEPROM memory to the specified value. If the application
needs the last four bytes of EEPROM memory, this option should not be used.
Chapter 2: Command Line Options 10

2.2 Example Command Line Invocations

Download the file diag.hex to the ATmega128 chip using the STK500 programmer con-
nected to the default serial port:
 
% avrdude -p m128 -c stk500 -e -U flash:w:diag.hex

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9702

avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude: done.
avrdude: performing op: 1, flash, 0, diag.hex
avrdude: reading input file "diag.hex"
avrdude: input file diag.hex auto detected as Intel Hex
avrdude: writing flash (19278 bytes):

Writing | ################################################## | 100% 7.60s

avrdude: 19456 bytes of flash written

avrdude: verifying flash memory against diag.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file diag.hex:
avrdude: input file diag.hex auto detected as Intel Hex
avrdude: input file diag.hex contains 19278 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 6.83s

avrdude: verifying ...

avrdude: 19278 bytes of flash verified

avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK

avrdude done. Thank you.

%


Chapter 2: Command Line Options 11

Upload the flash memory from the ATmega128 connected to the STK500 programmer and
save it in raw binary format in the file named c:/diag flash.bin:
 
% avrdude -p m128 -c stk500 -U flash:r:"c:/diag flash.bin":r

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9702

avrdude: reading flash memory:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 46.10s

avrdude: writing output file "c:/diag flash.bin"

avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK

avrdude done. Thank you.

%


Chapter 2: Command Line Options 12

Using the default programmer, download the file diag.hex to flash, eeprom.hex to EEP-
ROM, and set the Extended, High, and Low fuse bytes to 0xff, 0x89, and 0x2e respectively:
 
% avrdude -p m128 -u -U flash:w:diag.hex \
> -U eeprom:w:eeprom.hex \
> -U efuse:w:0xff:m \
> -U hfuse:w:0x89:m \
> -U lfuse:w:0x2e:m

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9702

avrdude: NOTE: FLASH memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed
To disable this feature, specify the -D option.
avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude: reading input file "diag.hex"
avrdude: input file diag.hex auto detected as Intel Hex
avrdude: writing flash (19278 bytes):

Writing | ################################################## | 100% 7.60s

avrdude: 19456 bytes of flash written

avrdude: verifying flash memory against diag.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file diag.hex:
avrdude: input file diag.hex auto detected as Intel Hex
avrdude: input file diag.hex contains 19278 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 6.84s

avrdude: verifying ...

avrdude: 19278 bytes of flash verified

[ ... other memory status output skipped for brevity ... ]

avrdude done. Thank you.

%


Chapter 2: Command Line Options 13

Connect to the JTAG ICE mkII which serial number ends up in 1C37 via USB, and enter
terminal mode:
 
% avrdude -c jtag2 -p m649 -P usb:1c:37 -t

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.03s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9603

[ ... terminal mode output skipped for brevity ... ]

avrdude done. Thank you.

List the serial numbers of all JTAG ICEs attached to USB. This is done by specifying an
invalid serial number, and increasing the verbosity level.
 
% avrdude -c jtag2 -p m128 -P usb:xx -v
[...]
Using Port : usb:xxx
Using Programmer : jtag2
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found JTAG ICE, serno: 00A000001C6B
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found JTAG ICE, serno: 00A000001C3A
avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found JTAG ICE, serno: 00A000001C30
avrdude: usbdev_open(): did not find any (matching) USB device "usb:xxx"

Chapter 3: Terminal Mode Operation 14

3 Terminal Mode Operation

AVRDUDE has an interactive mode called terminal mode that is enabled by the ‘-t’ option.
This mode allows one to enter interactive commands to display and modify the various de-
vice memories, perform a chip erase, display the device signature bytes and part parameters,
and to send raw programming commands. Commands and parameters may be abbreviated
to their shortest unambiguous form. Terminal mode also supports a command history so
that previously entered commands can be recalled and edited.

3.1 Terminal Mode Commands

The following commands are implemented:
dump memtype addr nbytes
Read nbytes from the specified memory area, and display them in the usual
hexadecimal and ASCII form.
dump Continue dumping the memory contents for another nbytes where the previous
dump command left off.
write memtype addr byte1 ... byteN
Manually program the respective memory cells, starting at address addr, using
the values byte1 through byteN. This feature is not implemented for bank-
addressed memories such as the flash memory of ATMega devices.
erase Perform a chip erase.
send b1 b2 b3 b4
Send raw instruction codes to the AVR device. If you need access to a feature
of an AVR part that is not directly supported by AVRDUDE, this command
allows you to use it, even though AVRDUDE does not implement the command.
sig Display the device signature bytes.
part Display the current part settings and parameters. Includes chip specific infor-
mation including all memory types supported by the device, read/write timing,
etc.
?
help Give a short on-line summary of the available commands.
quit Leave terminal mode and thus AVRDUDE.
In addition, the following commands are supported on the STK500 programmer:
vtarg voltage
Set the target’s supply voltage to voltage Volts.
varef voltage
Set the adjustable voltage source to voltage Volts. This voltage is normally
used to drive the target’s Aref input on the STK500.
fosc freq [M |k ]
Set the master oscillator to freq Hz. An optional trailing letter M multiplies
by 1E6, a trailing letter k by 1E3.
Chapter 3: Terminal Mode Operation 15

fosc off Turn the master oscillator off.

sck period
STK500 only: Set the SCK clock period to period microseconds.

JTAG ICE only: Set the JTAG ICE bit clock period to period microseconds.
Note that unlike STK500 settings, this setting will be reverted to its default
value (approximately 1 microsecond) when the programming software signs off
from the JTAG ICE.

parms STK500 only: Display the current voltage and master oscillator parameters.

JTAG ICE only: Display the current target supply voltage and JTAG bit clock
rate/period.

3.2 Terminal Mode Examples

Display part parameters, modify eeprom cells, perform a chip erase:
Chapter 3: Terminal Mode Operation 16
 
% avrdude -p m128 -c stk500 -t

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9702
avrdude: current erase-rewrite cycle count is 52 (if being tracked)
avrdude> part
>>> part

AVR Part : ATMEGA128

Chip Erase delay : 9000 us
PAGEL : PD7
BS2 : PA0
RESET disposition : dedicated
RETRY pulse : SCK
serial program mode : yes
parallel program mode : yes
Memory Detail :

Page Polled
Memory Type Paged Size Size #Pages MinW MaxW ReadBack
----------- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
eeprom no 4096 8 0 9000 9000 0xff 0xff
flash yes 131072 256 512 4500 9000 0xff 0x00
lfuse no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
hfuse no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
efuse no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
lock no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
calibration no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
signature no 3 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00

avrdude> dump eeprom 0 16

>>> dump eeprom 0 16
0000 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|

avrdude> write eeprom 0 1 2 3 4

>>> write eeprom 0 1 2 3 4

avrdude> dump eeprom 0 16

>>> dump eeprom 0 16
0000 01 02 03 04 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|

avrdude> erase
>>> erase
avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude> dump eeprom 0 16
>>> dump eeprom 0 16
0000 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|

avrdude>

Program the fuse bits of an ATmega128 (disable M103 compatibility, enable high speed ex-
ternal crystal, enable brown-out detection, slowly rising power). Note since we are working
with fuse bits the -u (unsafe) option is specified, which allows you to modify the fuse bits.
First display the factory defaults, then reprogram:
Chapter 3: Terminal Mode Operation 17
 
% avrdude -p m128 -u -c stk500 -t

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e9702
avrdude: current erase-rewrite cycle count is 52 (if being tracked)
avrdude> d efuse
>>> d efuse
0000 fd |. |

avrdude> d hfuse
>>> d hfuse
0000 99 |. |

avrdude> d lfuse
>>> d lfuse
0000 e1 |. |

avrdude> w efuse 0 0xff

>>> w efuse 0 0xff

avrdude> w hfuse 0 0x89

>>> w hfuse 0 0x89

avrdude> w lfuse 0 0x2f

>>> w lfuse 0 0x2f

avrdude>


Chapter 4: Configuration File 18

4 Configuration File
AVRDUDE reads a configuration file upon startup which describes all of the parts and
programmers that it knows about. The advantage of this is that if you have a chip that
is not currently supported by AVRDUDE, you can add it to the configuration file without
waiting for a new release of AVRDUDE. Likewise, if you have a parallel port programmer
that is not supported by AVRDUDE, chances are good that you can copy and existing
programmer definition, and with only a few changes, make your programmer work with
AVRDUDE.
AVRDUDE first looks for a system wide configuration file in a platform dependent
location. On Unix, this is usually /usr/local/etc/avrdude.conf, while on Windows it
is usally in the same location as the executable file. The name of this file can be changed
using the ‘-C’ command line option. After the system wide configuration file is parsed,
AVRDUDE looks for a per-user configuration file to augment or override the system wide
defaults. On Unix, the per-user file is .avrduderc within the user’s home directory. On
Windows, this file is the avrdude.rc file located in the same directory as the executable.

4.1 AVRDUDE Defaults

default_parallel = "default-parallel-device ";
Assign the default parallel port device. Can be overidden using the ‘-P’ option.
default_serial = "default-serial-device ";
Assign the default serial port device. Can be overidden using the ‘-P’ option.
default_programmer = "default-programmer-id ";
Assign the default programmer id. Can be overidden using the ‘-c’ option.

4.2 Programmer Definitions

The format of the programmer definition is as follows:
programmer
id = <id1> [, <id2> [, <id3>] ...] ; # <idN> are quoted strings
desc = <description> ; # quoted string
type = par | stk500 ; # programmer type
baudrate = <num> ; # baudrate for serial ports
vcc = <num1> [, <num2> ... ] ; # pin number(s)
reset = <num> ; # pin number
sck = <num> ; # pin number
mosi = <num> ; # pin number
miso = <num> ; # pin number
errled = <num> ; # pin number
rdyled = <num> ; # pin number
pgmled = <num> ; # pin number
vfyled = <num> ; # pin number
;

4.3 Part Definitions

part
id = <id> ; # quoted string
desc = <description> ; # quoted string
Chapter 4: Configuration File 19

devicecode = <num> ; # numeric

chip_erase_delay = <num> ; # micro-seconds
pagel = <num> ; # pin name in hex, i.e., 0xD7
bs2 = <num> ; # pin name in hex, i.e., 0xA0
reset = dedicated | io;
retry_pulse = reset | sck;
pgm_enable = <instruction format> ;
chip_erase = <instruction format> ;
memory <memtype>
paged = <yes/no> ; # yes / no
size = <num> ; # bytes
page_size = <num> ; # bytes
num_pages = <num> ; # numeric
min_write_delay = <num> ; # micro-seconds
max_write_delay = <num> ; # micro-seconds
readback_p1 = <num> ; # byte value
readback_p2 = <num> ; # byte value
pwroff_after_write = <yes/no> ; # yes / no
read = <instruction format> ;
write = <instruction format> ;
read_lo = <instruction format> ;
read_hi = <instruction format> ;
write_lo = <instruction format> ;
write_hi = <instruction format> ;
loadpage_lo = <instruction format> ;
loadpage_hi = <instruction format> ;
writepage = <instruction format> ;
;
;

4.3.1 Instruction Format

Instruction formats are specified as a comma seperated list of string values containing
information (bit specifiers) about each of the 32 bits of the instruction. Bit specifiers may
be one of the following formats:
1 The bit is always set on input as well as output
0 the bit is always clear on input as well as output
x the bit is ignored on input and output
a the bit is an address bit, the bit-number matches this bit specifier’s position
within the current instruction byte
aN the bit is the N th address bit, bit-number = N, i.e., a12 is address bit 12 on
input, a0 is address bit 0.
i the bit is an input data bit
o the bit is an output data bit
Each instruction must be composed of 32 bit specifiers. The instruction specification
closely follows the instruction data provided in Atmel’s data sheets for their parts. For
example, the EEPROM read and write instruction for an AT90S2313 AVR part could be
encoded as:

read = "1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x x x x",

Chapter 4: Configuration File 20

"x a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0 o o o o o o o o";

write = "1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 x x x x x x x x",

"x a6 a5 a4 a3 a2 a1 a0 i i i i i i i i";

4.4 Other Notes

• The devicecode parameter is the device code used by the STK500 and is obtained
from the software section (avr061.zip) of Atmel’s AVR061 application note available
from http://www.atmel.com/atmel/acrobat/doc2525.pdf.
• Not all memory types will implement all instructions.
• AVR Fuse bits and Lock bits are implemented as a type of memory.
• Example memory types are: flash, eeprom, fuse, lfuse (low fuse), hfuse (high fuse),
efuse (extended fuse), signature, calibration, lock.
• The memory type specified on the AVRDUDE command line must match one of the
memory types defined for the specified chip.
• The pwroff_after_write flag causes AVRDUDE to attempt to power the device off
and back on after an unsuccessful write to the affected memory area if VCC programmer
pins are defined. If VCC pins are not defined for the programmer, a message indicating
that the device needs a power-cycle is printed out. This flag was added to work around
a problem with the at90s4433/2333’s; see the at90s4433 errata at:
http://www.atmel.com/atmel/acrobat/doc1280.pdf
• The boot loader from application note AVR109 (and thus also the AVR Butterfly) does
not support writing of fuse bits. Writing lock bits is supported, but is restricted to
the boot lock bits (BLBxx). These are restrictions imposed by the underlying SPM
instruction that is used to program the device from inside the boot loader. Note that
programming the boot lock bits can result in a “shoot-into-your-foot” scenario as the
only way to unprogram these bits is a chip erase, which will also erase the boot loader
code.
The boot loader implements the “chip erase” function by erasing the flash pages of the
application section.
Reading fuse and lock bits is fully supported.
Note that due to the unability to write the fuse bits, the safemode functionality does
not make sense for these boot loaders.
Appendix A: Platform Dependent Information 21

Appendix A Platform Dependent Information

A.1 Unix
A.1.1 Unix Installation
To build and install from the source tarball on Unix like systems:
$ gunzip -c avrdude-5.1.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd avrdude-5.1
$ ./configure
$ make
$ su root -c ’make install’
The default location of the install is into /usr/local so you will need to be sure that
/usr/local/bin is in your PATH environment variable.
If you do not have root access to your system, you can do the the following instead:
$ gunzip -c avrdude-5.1.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd avrdude-5.1
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local
$ make
$ make install

A.1.1.1 FreeBSD Installation

AVRDUDE is installed via the FreeBSD Ports Tree as follows:
% su - root
# cd /usr/ports/devel/avrdude
# make install
If you wish to install from a pre-built package instead of the source, you can use the
following instead:
% su - root
# pkg_add -r avrdude
Of course, you must be connected to the Internet for these methods to work, since that
is where the source as well as the pre-built package is obtained.

A.1.1.2 Linux Installation

On rpm based linux systems (such as RedHat, SUSE, Mandrake, etc), you can build and
install the rpm binaries directly from the tarball:
$ su - root
# rpmbuild -tb avrdude-5.1.tar.gz
# rpm -Uvh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/avrdude-5.1-1.i386.rpm
Note that the path to the resulting rpm package, differs from system to system. The
above example is specific to RedHat.
Appendix A: Platform Dependent Information 22

A.1.2 Unix Configuration Files

When AVRDUDE is build using the default ‘--prefix’ configure option, the default con-
figuration file for a Unix system is located at /usr/local/etc/avrdude.conf. This can be
overridden by using the ‘-C’ command line option. Additionally, the user’s home directory
is searched for a file named .avrduderc, and if found, is used to augment the system default
configuration file.

A.1.2.1 FreeBSD Configuration Files

When AVRDUDE is installed using the FreeBSD ports system, the system configuration
file is always /usr/local/etc/avrdude.conf.

A.1.2.2 Linux Configuration Files

When AVRDUDE is installed using from an rpm package, the system configuration file will
be always be /etc/avrdude.conf.

A.1.3 Unix Port Names

The parallel and serial port device file names are system specific. The following table lists
the default names for a given system.
System Default Parallel Port Default Serial Port
FreeBSD /dev/ppi0 /dev/cuaa0
Linux /dev/parport0 /dev/ttyS0
On FreeBSD systems, AVRDUDE uses the ppi(4) interface for accessing the parallel
port and the sio(4) driver for serial port access.
On Linux systems, AVRDUDE uses the ppdev interface for accessing the parallel port
and the tty driver for serial port access.

A.1.4 Unix Documentation

AVRDUDE installs a manual page as well as info, HTML and PDF documentation. The
manual page is installed in /usr/local/man/man1 area, while the HTML and PDF doc-
umentation is installed in /usr/local/share/doc/avrdude directory. The info manual is
installed in /usr/local/info/avrdude.info.
Note that these locations can be altered by various configure options such as ‘--prefix’.

A.2 Windows
A.2.1 Installation
A Windows executable of avrdude is included in WinAVR which can be found at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr. WinAVR is a suite of executable, open
source software development tools for the AVR for the Windows platform.
To build avrdude from the source You must have Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com/).
To build and install from the source tarball for Windows (using Cygwin):
$ set PREFIX=<your install directory path>
$ export PREFIX
$ gunzip -c avrdude-5.1.tar.gz | tar xf -
Appendix A: Platform Dependent Information 23

$ cd avrdude-5.1
$ ./configure LDFLAGS="-static" --prefix=$PREFIX --datadir=$PREFIX
--sysconfdir=$PREFIX/bin --enable-versioned-doc=no
$ make
$ make install

A.2.2 Configuration Files

A.2.2.1 Configuration file names
AVRDUDE on Windows looks for a system configuration file name of avrdude.conf and
looks for a user override configuration file of avrdude.rc.

A.2.2.2 How AVRDUDE finds the configuration files.

AVRDUDE on Windows has a different way of searching for the system and user configu-
ration files. Below is the search method for locating the configuration files:
1. The directory from which the application loaded.
2. The current directory.
3. The Windows system directory. On Windows NT, the name of this directory is
SYSTEM32.
4. Windows NT: The 16-bit Windows system directory. The name of this directory is
SYSTEM.
5. The Windows directory.
6. The directories that are listed in the PATH environment variable.

A.2.3 Port Names

A.2.3.1 Serial Ports
When you select a serial port (i.e. when using an STK500) use the Windows serial port
device names such as: com1, com2, etc.

A.2.3.2 Parallel Ports

AVRDUDE will only accept 3 Windows parallel port names: lpt1, lpt2, or lpt3. Each of
these names corresponds to a fixed parallel port base address:

lpt1 0x378
lpt2 0x278
lpt3 0x3BC

On your desktop PC, lpt1 will be the most common choice. If you are using a laptop,
you might have to use lpt3 instead of lpt1. Select the name of the port the corresponds to
the base address of the parallel port that you want.

A.2.4 Using the parallel port

Appendix A: Platform Dependent Information 24

A.2.4.1 Windows NT/2K/XP

On Windows NT, 2000, and XP user applications cannot directly access the parallel port.
However, kernel mode drivers can access the parallel port. giveio.sys is a driver that can
allow user applications to set the state of the parallel port pins.
Before using AVRDUDE, the giveio.sys driver must be loaded. The accompanying
command-line program, loaddrv.exe, can do just that.
To make things even easier there are 3 batch files that are also included:
1. install giveio.bat Install and start the giveio driver.
2. status giveio.bat Check on the status of the giveio driver.
3. remove giveio.bat Stop and remove the giveio driver from memory.
These 3 batch files calls the loaddrv program with various options to install, start, stop,
and remove the driver.
When you first execute install giveio.bat, loaddrv.exe and giveio.sys must be in the
current directory. When install giveio.bat is executed it will copy giveio.sys from your
current directory to your Windows directory. It will then load the driver from the Windows
directory. This means that after the first time install giveio is executed, you should be able
to subsequently execute the batch file from any directory and have it successfully start the
driver.
Note that you must have administrator privilege to load the giveio driver.

A.2.4.2 Windows 95/98

On Windows 95 and 98 the giveio.sys driver is not needed.

A.2.5 Documentation
AVRDUDE installs a manual page as well as info, HTML and PDF documentation. The
manual page is installed in /usr/local/man/man1 area, while the HTML and PDF doc-
umentation is installed in /usr/local/share/doc/avrdude directory. The info manual is
installed in /usr/local/info/avrdude.info.
Note that these locations can be altered by various configure options such as ‘--prefix’
and ‘--datadir’.

A.2.6 Credits.
Thanks to:
• Dale Roberts for the giveio driver.
• Paula Tomlinson for the loaddrv sources.
• Chris Liechti <[email protected]> for modifying loaddrv to be command line driven and
for writing the batch files.
Appendix B: Troubleshooting 25

Appendix B Troubleshooting
In general, please report any bugs encountered via
http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=avrdude.
• Problem: I’m using a serial programmer under Windows and get the following error:
avrdude: serial_open(): can’t set attributes for device "com1",
Solution: This problem seems to appear with certain versions of Cygwin. Specifying
"/dev/com1" instead of "com1" should help.
• Problem: I’m using linux and my AVR910 programmer is really slow.
Solution (short): setserial port low_latency
Solution (long): There are two problems here. First, the system may wait some time
before it passes data from the serial port to the program. Under Linux the following
command works around this (you may need root privileges for this).
setserial port low_latency
Secondly, the serial interface chip may delay the interrupt for some time. This be-
haviour can be changed by setting the FIFO-threshold to one. Under Linux this can
only be done by changing the kernel source in drivers/char/serial.c. Search the file
for UART_FCR_TRIGGER_8 and replace it with UART_FCR_TRIGGER_1. Note that overall
performance might suffer if there is high throughput on serial lines. Also note that you
are modifying the kernel at your own risk.
• Problem: I’m not using linux and my AVR910 programmer is really slow.
Solutions: The reasons for this are the same as above. If you know how to work around
this on your OS, please let us know.
• Problem: AVRDUDE says my device is not supported when using the AVR109 boot
loader
Solution: Currently, AVRDUDE uses the AVR910 device codes given in the
avrdude.conf file, and matches them against the list of supported devices reported
by the programmer. Unfortunately, there are no device codes at all for some of the
newer AVR devices, and even worse, the device codes listed in preprocessor.xls of
appnote AVR109 do not match those once specified in AVR910.
Use the -F option to force AVRDUDE to continue anyway.
• Problem: Updating the flash ROM from terminal mode does not work with the JTAG
ICEs.
Solution: None at this time. Currently, the JTAG ICE code cannot write to the flash
ROM one byte at a time.
• Problem: Page-mode programming the EEPROM (using the -U option) does not erase
EEPROM cells before writing, and thus cannot overwrite any previous value != 0xff.
Solution: None. This is an inherent feature of the way JTAG EEPROM programming
works, and is documented that way in the Atmel AVR datasheets. In order to suc-
cessfully program the EEPROM that way, a prior chip erase (with the EESAVE fuse
unprogrammed) is required.