Atmel-ICE Pin Out

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hobbss
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Posted by hobbss: Tue. Jun 16, 2015 - 02:39 AM
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I am designing my first board with a 10 pin connector, intending to connect to the Atmel-Ice, and I am paranoid of flipping the the pins, and making the board a pretty paperweight.

 

The schematic below is intended to be on my board, and connect to the ICE.  Does this look correct?

 

 

Ultimately, I'd like to use a Tag-Connect cable rather than put a connector on my board, but came across a disturbing message on their web site regarding the pinout of the Atmel-ICE (http://www.tag-connect.com/TC2030-CTX-NL):

 

WARNING for ATMEL-ICE users: Astoundingly the new Atmel-ICE has it's SWD header pin numbering reversed. To use our cable with their backwards header you'll either need to cut off the ribbon connector locating lug and plug it in reversed, or connect a new ribbon header onto our cable backwards. If you plug in a standard (correct) Cortex cable you're going to short power and stuff out.

 

Per Tag-Connect, they actually sell a cable called TC2050-IDC-050-LEMTA (do you see what they did there? ;) ) that is not in their official catalog to address this issue.

 

Also discussed here: https://www.avrfreaks.net/forum/atmel-ice-debugger (see second to last post).  I just purchased my Atmel-ICE about a month ago.  Has this issue been resolved, or is it still outstanding?

Science is not consensus. Science is numbers.

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Tools, In-System Debuggers and Programmers
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clawson
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Posted by clawson: Tue. Jun 16, 2015 - 08:58 AM
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Is it me or have you failed to say what CPU you are talking about here? I see the term "SWD" so I assume you are talking about a SAM Cortex ARM rather than some other type of CPU?

 

Anyway the ATmel-ICE manual has pinouts:

 

http://www.atmel.com/webdoc/atme...

http://www.atmel.com/webdoc/atme...

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hobbss
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Posted by hobbss: Wed. Jun 17, 2015 - 01:37 AM
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Sorry Cliff -- rookie mistake.  I am in fact trying to connect JTAG to an ATMEGA256RFR2.   I am somewhat confident in my ability to make the connector compatible with the Atmel-ICE stock cable.  I am intrigued by the whole "pin reversed" thing on the connector (i.e., 1 to 10, 2 to 9, etc.)

 

Has anyone here had any experience with that?

Science is not consensus. Science is numbers.

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clawson
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Posted by clawson: Wed. Jun 17, 2015 - 09:13 AM
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But that reversal is only talking about SWD (that is the debug interface for ARM/Cortex). I think the suggestion is that there's an "unofficial standard" way to wire it on ARM chips and Atmel have chosen a different layout. This has no relevance to ATMega. An ATMega256RF2 uses (Atmel) JTAG or ISP.

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Pandurang Chauhan
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Posted by Pandurang Chauhan: Mon. Oct 23, 2017 - 10:46 AM
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Hi All,

 

I think I had same problem! my board has SAM4LC2A with 10-pin JTAG connector. I connected ICE with JTAG connector with 10-pin connector assuming red wire is PIN-1. I tried for almost 10-11 hrs and finally I saw this post and reversed the connector. It worked!!!

Note: I have basic version of ICE package and hence, I did not have 10-pin connector. So, I manually prepared a connector with 10-pin wire of ICE.

P D Chauhan

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Brian Fairchild
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Posted by Brian Fairchild: Mon. Oct 23, 2017 - 11:04 AM
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It's a fairly common problem when using double-row headers if you want the ribbon cable to play nice.

 

How do you avoid a twist in the ribbon cable in a situation like this...

 

 

 

I've been badly caught out before when designing two boards that needed to be linked by a ribbon and forgetting to swap the pins around on one connector.

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avrcandies
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Posted by avrcandies: Mon. Oct 23, 2017 - 05:42 PM
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Also, keep in mind that the physical rows are 1 3 5 7 9   & 2 4 6 8 across from each other.  Occasionally there will be a board where they've physically arranged numbering in a wraparound style (like a dip package).  Then when you make a cable based on the schematic (& assuming to be standard even/odd dual row) &  plug it into the board...nothing...or poof!

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TT_ZX
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Posted by TT_ZX: Mon. Oct 23, 2017 - 09:57 PM
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I've used the Tag-Connect cables before.  The no leg (NL) version is a PITA for anything but a quick plug in a program.  You can use a clip on the back to hold the connector on but this won't work if you can't get to the underside of the PCB (like when it's mounted in an enclosure).  The legged version has quite a large footprint so I opted to use a standard surface mount 10 pin 0.05" pitch header instead on my last board.

 

Yes, the Atmel pin numbering is reversed.  This is not something they are likely to change.  It's not a big deal when you know about it but it is annoying.

 

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anthony_k
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Posted by anthony_k: Tue. Dec 19, 2017 - 01:32 AM
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Annoying is one word to describe it - just got caught by this big time.

 

Either the intern at atmel got the 0.05 10 pin header footprint wrong on the ICE and a special cable was the fix, or they have deliberately reversed it to make sure it only works with their magic and very overpriced cables. Either way, thanks for that...

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az10sbum
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Posted by az10sbum: Sat. Jan 20, 2018 - 06:12 AM
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anthony_k wrote:

Either the intern at atmel got the 0.05 10 pin header footprint wrong on the ICE and a special cable was the fix, or they have deliberately reversed it to make sure it only works with their magic and very overpriced cables. Either way, thanks for that...

 

Not just the atmel ice -- the jtag-ice3 is the same way.  It is not just an ARM issue.  I was pretty surprised when I found that out.  I buy regular 0.050 ribbon cables and cut the key off of one end.  I put that end in the programmer ( either atmel ice or jtag ice3 ).  The programmed does have a pin one indicator -- it just doesn't line up with the key.  I assume that someone screwed up way back when and they just stuck with it.

 

 

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