Modern AVR Programming with AVRDUDE: UPDI and Toolchain Integration
Introduction
avrdude is the standard command-line utility to program Atmel/Microchip AVR microcontrollers. It supports multiple programmers, including:
- serialUPDI (for new ATtiny/mega0/1-series with UPDI interface)
- AVRISP mkII (ISP/PDI/TPI programmer, see Appendix A for legacy setup)
This article collects practical usage notes, examples, and troubleshooting tips when working with avrdude on GNU/Linux.
Example Session with SerialUPDI (ATtiny816)
Using Port : /dev/ttyUSB0
Using Programmer : serialupdi
Overriding Baud Rate : 230400
AVR Part : ATtiny816
RESET disposition : dedicated
RETRY pulse : SCK
Serial program mode : yes
Parallel program mode : yes
Block Poll Page Polled
Memory Type Alias Mode Delay Size Indx Paged Size Size #Pages MinW MaxW ReadBack
----------- -------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
fuse0 wdtcfg 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse1 bodcfg 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse2 osccfg 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse4 tcd0cfg 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse5 syscfg0 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse6 syscfg1 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse7 append 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuse8 bootend 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
fuses 0 0 0 0 no 9 10 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
lock 0 0 0 0 no 1 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
tempsense 0 0 0 0 no 2 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
signature 0 0 0 0 no 3 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
prodsig 0 0 0 0 no 61 61 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
sernum 0 0 0 0 no 10 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
osccal16 0 0 0 0 no 2 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
osccal20 0 0 0 0 no 2 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
osc16err 0 0 0 0 no 2 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
osc20err 0 0 0 0 no 2 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
data 0 0 0 0 no 0 1 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
userrow usersig 0 0 0 0 no 32 32 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
eeprom 0 0 0 0 no 128 32 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
flash 0 0 0 0 no 8192 64 0 0 0 0x00 0x00 Detected memory areas:
- Fuses (fuse0 … fuse8, syscfg, osccfg, etc.)
- Lock bits
- Signature / production signature / serial number
- User row (usersig)
- EEPROM (128 bytes)
- Flash (8 KB)
Common avrdude Options
-p <partno> Specify AVR device; `-p ?` lists all supported devices
-c <programmer> Specify programmer; `-c ?` lists all supported programmers
-P <port> Connection (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0, usb)
-b <baudrate> Override serial baudrate
-U <mem>:op:file[:fmt] Perform memory operation
-e Erase chip before programming
-t Start interactive terminal
-v Verbose (repeat for more detail)
-q Quell progress output
-T <terminal cmd line> Run terminal line when it is its turnMemory Operations (-U)
- flash:r|w|v:
- read/write/verify flash - eeprom:r|w|v:
- read/write/verify EEPROM - fuses:r|w:
- access fuse bytes - userrow:r|w:
- read/write the USERROW
File formats (:fmt)
- :a - auto-detect
- :b - 0b-binary byte list
- :d - decimal byte list
- :e - ELF
- :h - 0x-hexadecimal byte list
- :i - Intel Hex
- :I - Intel Hex with comments
- :m - in-place immediate
- :o - octal byte list
- :r - raw binary
- :R - R byte list
- :s - Motorola S-Record
Practical Examples
Read EEPROM
avrdude -v -p t816 -c serialupdi -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -U eeprom:r:-:hRead USERROW
avrdude -v -p t816 -c serialupdi -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -U userrow:r:-:hSay you want to read the data stored in the userrow directly, the C code is the following:
/**
* Start address for the USERROW segment containing configuration data
*/
#define USERROW_CONFIG_BASE 0x1300
// The USERROW is memory mapped
typedef struct {
uint8_t var1;
[...]
uint8_t varN;
} userrow_struct_t;
#define userrow (*(volatile const userrow_struct_t *)USERROW_CONFIG_BASE)Dump USERROW/EEPROM
avrdude -v -pt816 -cserialupdi -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -T 'dump eeprom'For the userrow: dump userrow.
Interactive shell
avrdude -v -pt816 -cserialupdi -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -t
dump userrow
write userrow 0 0xBABBE0
0000 e0 bb ba 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
0010 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
write userrow 0 0xBA, 0xBB, 0xE0, 0x00
0000 ba bb e0 00 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
0010 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff |................|
flush : synchronise flash and EEPROM cache with the device
dump eeprom
dump flash
dump fuses
erase flash; erase eeprom; flushThe shell session can also be condensed as a single -T command invocation:
avrdude -v -pt816 -cserialupdi -P /dev/ttyUSB0 -T 'write userrow 0 0x1 0 255 16; flush'Appendix A – AVRISP mkII Setup Guide (Legacy)
The following section is preserved from an older tutorial. It describes how to build avrdude with support for the AVRISP mkII on GNU/Linux. It remains useful for reference if you are using older ATmega/ATtiny devices with ISP or PDI interfaces.
Introduction
The AVRISP mk2 is an USB programmer for Atmel 8-bit microcontrollers with ISP (ATtiny, ATmega), PDI (ATxmega) or TPI (smaller ATtiny) interface.
It can be used either with:
- Atmel Studio (Windows only)
- Arduino Playground (Windows, MAC, Linux)
- avrdude (virtually any OS, directly from the command line).
Please note that the Arduino Playground uses avrdude under the hood to burn the firmware onto microcontrollers if the arduino bootloader is not used.
This guide is about building, installing and using avrdude on GNU/Linux. Due to a bug in the most recent version of avrdude in order for the AVRISP mk2 to be recognized and used the program must be manually built after applying a patch to the source code.
Installing Required Packages
First of all we are going to install some helper programs and libraries. This process varies depending on your distribution of choice.
The packages listed below are the bare minimum required to build avrdude from
source. You may also like to install gcc-avr binutils-avr avr-libc in order to
compile the firmware for Atmel microcontrollers.
Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint
As root run:
# apt-get install wget bison automake autoconf flex gcc libelf-dev
libusb-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libftdi-dev libftdi1-dev`Red Hat/Centos/Fedora
As root run:
# yum install wget bison automake autoconf flex gcc patch
elfutils-libelf-devel libusb-devel libftdi-devel`Compiling and Installing avrdude
First of all we need to prepare a working directory to store the source code, place it where you like:
$ mkdir avrdude; cd avrdudeGet the source code for the latest version (at the time of writing it is version 6.2):
$ wget -qO- http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avrdude/avrdude-6.2.tar.gz | tar zxv --strip-components 1Download and apply the patch to fix the bug (the patch is for version 6.2):
$ wget -qO- https://savannah.nongnu.org/support/download.php?file_id=32171 | patchWe are now ready to build!
$ ./bootstrap && ./configure && make -j2If no error is received avrdude is ready to rock with the AVRISP mk2. Before
installing you can try if everything works by running the command
$ ./avrdude -v which should display the current version and the build date.
You can now run avrdude directly from the build directory or better still install it system-wide. To do so you need root privileges. Run the following commands as root:
# make install && cp ./avrdude /usr/bin/Now you are done. In the following section some useful avrdude commands are listed. Try them to see if everything was configured correctly.
Testing Communication
Connect the programmer to a microcontroller. Assuming you are using an ATmega16 the command you should run to test the connection is:
$ avrdude -p m16 -c avrispmkII -P usbIf something goes wrong ensure that udev was configured correctly and the electrical connections are OK.
To see the list of devices supported by avrdude issue: avrdude -p ?
A sample programming line for avrdude would be:
avrdude -p m328p -P usb -c avrispmkII -e -U flash:w:test.hex:iIf none of the above commands report any error you are ready to go. Happy programming.