The Flash Center™ Software is a free software package that allows engineers to quickly erase, program, and verify I2C- and SPI-based EEPROM and Flash memory chips that are interfaced through Total Phase's industry-leading Aardvark™ I2C/SPI and Cheetah™ SPI Host Adapters.

Features

New features in v1.10

• Improved support for S-Record files
• Program without erase option for SPI flash devices
• Fill feature, which allows users to specify a data pattern to insert into the hex editor
• Additional device parameters for support of a broader range of memory devices
• Expanded parts library

Free Download

The Flash Center Software is available as a free download from our website to all users.

The Flash Center Software requires at least one Total Phase host adapter to program I2C or SPI memory devices. The Aardvark I2C/SPI can be used to program I2C-based or SPI-based devices, while the Cheetah SPI Host Adapter can be used to program high-speed SPI-based devices.

Fast Programming Speeds

The Flash Center Software takes advantage of Total Phase's high performance host adapters to maximize programming speed. Unlike other programmers which can take minutes to program a memory device, the Flash Center Software can program the same device in seconds. There are no images to download to an external programmer - the bytes are sent directly into your target device from the host computer.

Since the Cheetah SPI Host Adapteris capable of signaling at over 40 MHz, the main speed limitation is the flash memory's page commit time. The Cheetah adapter is able to erase, program, and verify a typical 1 Megabyte flash memory in only 23 seconds.

Gang Programming Support

Gang programming is easy with the Flash Center Software. By connecting multiple Aardvark I2C/SPI and/or Cheetah SPI Host Adapter to your computer, you can use any or all of the devices to program your target devices in parallel.

Device Support

Users do not need to wait for the next release to have support for their memory chips to be added to the Flash Center Software. The Flash Center Software was designed with an XML-based memory device library. By adding or modifying the XML descriptions of target memory devices, developers can instantly support almost any I2C- or SPI-based EEPROM or Flash memory

System Requirements

• Intel or AMD processor operating at 2 GHz or higher.
• 512 MB physical RAM
• 1 GB hard drive space
• Windows or Linux
• One or more available USB ports
• One or more:
  • Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter
    • Hardware version 2.01 or greater
    • Firmware version 3.30 or greater
  • Cheetah SPI Host Adaptor
    • Hardware version 1.00 or greater
    • Firmware version 2.00 or greater

The latest firmware for the Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter and Cheetah SPI Host Adapter can be downloaded from the Downloads section of the website.

Windows

The software is supported on Windows 2000 (SP4 or later) and Windows XP (SP2 or later) and Windows Vista.

Linux

The software has been designed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5 with kernel 2.6. Customers have reported successful operation with SuSE and Ubuntu distributions. Please be aware that there may be significant differences and idiosyncracies in the way that different distributions of Linux operate. As such, Total Phase may not be able to support your particular distribution of Linux. Support will be offered on a case-by-case basis.

64-bit Support

The software will run on 64-bit Linux and Mac OS X as a 32-bit application. Total Phase will offer similar support for 64-bit Windows in the coming weeks.

Screenshots

	Main Window The Flash Center is a graphical application that allows developers to quickly erase, program, and verify I2C- and SPI-based EEPROM and Flash memory chips. In this screenshot, three Cheetah SPI Host Adapters are being used to gang program three SPI Flash memory chips in parallel. An Aardvark I2C/SPI has been connected, but is not being used.		Adding Adapters The Flash Center supports the use of multiple host adapters in parallel. It can use any number of Aardvark I2C/SPI and Cheetah SPI Host Adapter at one time.
	Transaction Log Every action performed by the Flash Center is logged in the Transaction log for good visibility.		Memory Device Support The Flash Center supports a large number of memory devices and the library can be expanding by loading new XML-based part descriptor files.