How To Regenerate a Stand Alone Programming Image
Note: The Cyclone Image Creation Utility has changed in signficant ways since this blog post was originally published, but the explanation remains useful in general terms. PEmicro hopes to update this soon. PEmicro has just released a new version of the Cyclone Image Creation Utility that allows the user to retrieve the configuration for a Stand Alone Programming (SAP) image directly from a previously saved image. Once the image configuration settings have been retrieved from an image file, the user can then regenerate the image, or modify the settings and generate a new file, or even use those settings with other .s19 files to generate a SAP image with different source but the same configuration. Important configuration settings include: selection of the programming algorithm, target power settings, security settings, image restrictions, and most importantly the set of commands to erase and program the device. Figure 1 shows an example with a set of configuration selections. Previously, the Cyclone Image Creation Utility allowed a user to save a configuration to a file, and load the configuration from a previously saved configuration file. It was developed to assist users to conveniently load image settings and make any modifications necessary to create a new image. However, if the image configuration settings were not saved at that time, there was no way for a user to later extract the image configuration settings from the image itself. However, PEmicro has revised the image format so that the user can now easily pull the configuration information straight from any SAP image created with the Cyclone Image Creation Utility version 6.22.00.02 or later. An identical regenerated image will have the same exact image settings, but a different CRC32 checksum due to the timing stamp and unique image ID to assist Cyclone programming. To access the image configuration handling selections, choose the File menu of the Cyclone Image Creation Utility, as shown in Figure 2. This will bring up a drop down menu where the user should choose ‘Load Configuration from Image’. If attempting to open an older image (generated with Image Creation Utility version 6.22.00.01 or previous), the program will respond with the message ‘Specified File does not contain valid image configuration information’. Note that the above option only works with image files saved to disk, as it cannot load an image saved directly to Cyclone in order to protect end user intellectual properties. Once the “Load Configuration From Image” option is selected, a window will pop up for the user to select the image file to load the settings, as shown in Figure 3. If all of the programming algorithms and object code files remain in the same file folder as when the original image was created, then the Image Creation Utility will restore all the image creation settings exactly as they were created last time, as shown in Figure 4. If either the programming algorithm file or the object code file no long exists in the original file folder, an information box will pop up notifying the user of the issue. The user should correct the issue first and then load the image again to regenerate the image. PEmicro has improved Cyclone image structure to encapsulate the image configuration settings to make it easier for the user. It now allows the user to open and view configuration settings directly from a SAP image stored on the PC and be able to regenerate as well as modify those settings and create new SAP images.
