AVRDUDE(1)

NAME
avrdude - driver program for ``simple'' Atmel AVR MCU programmer

SYNOPSIS
avrdude -p partno [-b baudrate] [-B bitclock] [-c programmer-id] [-C config-file] [-D] [-e] [-E exitspec [,exitspec]] [-F] [-n] [-P port] [-q] [-s] [-t] [-u] [-U memtype:op:filename:filefmt] [-v] [-V] [-y] [-Y]

DESCRIPTION
Avrdude is a program for downloading code and data to Atmel AVR microcontrollers. Avrdude supports Atmel's STK500 programmer, Atmel's AVRISP and AVRISP mkII devices, Atmel's JTAG ICE (both mkI and mkII), programmers complying to AppNote AVR910 and AVR109 (including the Butterfly), as well as a simple hard-wired programmer connected directly to a ppi(4) or parport(4) parallel port, or to a standard serial port. In the simplest case, the hardware consists just of a cable connecting the respective AVR signal lines to the parallel port.

The MCU is programmed in serial programming mode, so, for the ppi(4) based programmer, the MCU signals ‘/RESET’, ‘SCK’, ‘MISO’ and ‘MOSI’ need to be connected to the parallel port. Optionally, some otherwise unused output pins of the parallel port can be used to supply power for the MCU part, so it is also possible to construct a passive stand-alone programming device. Some status LEDs indicating the current operating state of the programmer can be connected, and a signal is available to control a buffer/driver IC 74LS367 (or 74HCT367). The latter can be useful to decouple the parallel port from the MCU when in-system programming is used.

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.

Atmel's STK500 programmer is also supported and connects to a serial port. Both, firmware versions 1.x and 2.x can be handled, but require a different programmer type specification (by now).

The simple serial programmer described in Atmel's application note AVR910, and the bootloader described in Atmel's application note AVR109 (which is also used by the AVR Butterfly evaluation board), are supported on a serial port.

Atmel's JTAG ICE (both mkI and mkII) is supported as well to up- or download memory areas from/to an AVR target (no support for on-chip debugging).

Input files can be provided, and output files can be written in different file formats, such as raw binary files containing the data to download to the chip, Intel hex format, or Motorola S-record format. There are a number of tools available to produce those files, like asl(1) as a standalone assembler, or avr-objcopy(1) for the final stage of the GNU toolchain for the AVR microcontroller.

Avrdude can program the EEPROM and flash ROM memory cells of supported AVR parts. Where supported by the serial instruction set, fuse bits and lock bits can be programmed as well. These are implemented within avrdude as separate memory types and can be programmed using data from a file (see the -m option) or from terminal mode (see the dump and write commands). It is also possible to read the chip (provided it has not been code-protected previously, of course) and store the data in a file. Finally, a ``terminal'' mode is available that allows one to interactively communicate with the MCU, and to display or program individual memory cells. On the STK500 programmer, several operational parameters (target supply voltage, target Aref voltage, master clock) can be examined and changed from within terminal mode as well.

  Options
In order to control all the different operation modi, a number of options need to be specified to avrdude.

-p partno
    This is the only option that is mandatory for every invocation of avrdude. It specifies the type of the MCU connected to the programmer. These are read from the config file. If avrdude does not know about a part that you have, simply 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). See the sample config file for the format. Currently, the following MCU types are understood:

    Option tag | Official part name
    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.

-b baudrate
    Override the RS-232 connection baud rate specified in the respective programmer'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
    Use the pin configuration specified by the argument. Pin configurations are read from the config file (see the -C option). New pin configurations can be easily added or modified through the use of a config file to make avrdude work with different programmers as long as the programmer supports the Atmel AVR serial program method. You can use the 'default_programmer' keyword in your ${HOME}/.avrduderc file to assign a default programmer to keep from having to specify this option on every invocation.

-C config-file
    Use the specified config file to load configuration data. This file contains all programmer 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). See the config file, located at ${PREFIX}/etc/avrdude.conf, which contains a description of the format.

-D  Disable auto erase for flash. When the -U option with flash memory is specified, avrdude will perform a chip erase before starting any of the programming operations, since it generally is a mistake to program the flash without performing an erase first. This option disables that.

-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
    [,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 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 allowing 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. By default the /dev/ppi0 port is used, but if the programmer type normally connects to the serial port, the /dev/cuaa0 port is the default. 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 configured with libusb support, port can alternatively be specified as usb[:serialno]. This will cause avrdude to search a JTAG ICE mkII 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.

    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.

-s  Disable safemode prompting. When safemode discovers that one or more fuse bits have unintentionally changed, it will prompt for confirmation regarding whether or not it should attempt to recover the fuse bit(s). Specifying this flag disables the prompt and assumes that the fuse bit(s) should be recovered without asking for confirmation first.

-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.

-u  Disable the safemode fuse bit checks. Safemode is enabled by default and is intended to prevent unintentional fuse bit changes. When enabled, safemode will issue a warning if the any fuse bits are found to be different at program exit than they were when avrdude was invoked. Safemode won't alter fuse bits itself, but rather will prompt for instructions, unless the terminal is non-interactive, in which case safemode is disabled. See the -s option to disable safemode prompting.

-U memtype
    :op :filename [:format] Perform a memory operation as indicated. The memtype field specifies the memory type to operate on. The available memory types are device-dependent, the actual configuration can be viewed with the part command in terminal mode. 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 device memory and write to the specified file

    w   read data from the specified file and write to the device memory

    v   read data from both the device and the specified file and perform a verify

    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. Format can be one of:

    i   Intel Hex

    s   Motorola S-record

    r   raw binary; little-endian byte order, in the case of the flash ROM data

    m   immediate; actual byte values specified on the command line, separated by commas or spaces. This is good for programming fuse bytes without having to create a single-byte file or enter terminal mode.

    a   auto detect; valid for input only, and only if the input is not provided at stdin.

    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.

  Terminal mode
In this mode, avrdude only initializes communication with the MCU, and then awaits user commands on standard input. Commands and parameters may be abbreviated to the shortest unambiguous form. Terminal mode provides a command history using readline(3), so previously entered command lines can be recalled and edited. The following commands are currently implemented:

dump memtype addr nbytes
    Read nbytes bytes 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 information including all memory types supported by the device, read/write timing, etc.

vtarg voltage
    Set the target's supply voltage to voltage Volts. Only supported on the STK500 programmer.

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. Only supported on the STK500 programmer.

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. Only supported on the STK500 programmer.

fosc off
    Turn the master oscillator off. Only supported on the STK500 programmer.

sck period
    STK500 programmer 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 programmer only: Display the current voltage and master oscillator parameters.

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

file ...?

help
    Give a short on-line summary of the available commands.

quit
    Leave terminal mode and thus avrdude.

  Default Parallel port pin connections
(these can be changed, see the -c option)
Pin number | Function
2-5 | Vcc (optional power supply to MCU)
7 | /RESET (to MCU)
8 | SCK (to MCU)
9 | MOSI (to MCU)
10 | MISO (from MCU)
18-25 | GND

FILES

/dev/ppi0
    default device to be used for communication with the programming hardware

${PREFIX}/etc/avrdude.conf
    programmer and parts configuration file

${HOME}/.avrduderc
    programmer and parts configuration file (per-user overrides)

~/.inputrc
    Initialization file for the readline(3) library

${PREFIX}/share/doc/avrdude/avrdude.pdf
    Schematic of programming hardware

SEE ALSO
avr-objcopy(1), ppi(4), readline(3)

The AVR microcontroller product description can be found at

    http://www.atmel.com/products/AVR/

AUTHORS
Avrdude was written by Brian S. Dean <bsd@bsdhome.com>.

This man page by Joerg Wunsch.

BUGS
Please report bugs via
    http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=avrdude.

The JTAG ICE programmers currently cannot write to the flash ROM one byte at a time. For that reason, updating the flash ROM from terminal mode does not work.

Page-mode programming the EEPROM through JTAG (i.e. through an -U option) requires a prior chip erase. This is an inherent feature of the way JTAG EEPROM programming works.

The device IDs used by AVR910 and AVR109 do not match, so the avr109 (aka. butterfly) programmer might report
    selected device is not supported by programmer.
Use the -F option to force avrdude to continue anyway.