How to set up a third-party serial flash device in Quartus Prime Programmer 18.1 Lite

[humandude]

Hello,

I have a question about third-party serial flash memory devices. For STMicroelectronic's serial flash memory ST M25P16, how do I add this device to my Quartus Prime Programmer device list? When I select the mode Active Serial Programming, and click on 'Add Device', the 'New...' button is greyed out. Is this only available for the paid version of Quartus Prime / Quartus Prime Programmer? By the way, I did run the application as admin and the button is still greyed out.

I did find 'Define CFI Flash Device' under the Edit drop-down menu, and the 'New...' button is clickable. However, I am a bit confused on some of the input parameters. I am sure I can find the manufacturer ID and device ID, but I am unsure if I should check the 'Flash device is Intel compatible' checkbox. I also could not find the word programming time and buffer programming time in the M25P16 documentation. Do these input parameters need to be very accurate? I'm not very confident that this is the right path. Please let me know!

ST M25P16 datasheet:

https://datasheet.octopart.com/M25P16-VME6G-STMicroelectronics-datasheet-7623188.pdf

[FvM]

Hi,
M25P16 is no CFI flash, it's however fully compatible with EPCS16, even sharing the ID. Unfortunately it's obsolete since many years.

[humandude]

Are you saying that I could select EPCS16 as the configuration device in the programmer and it would be able to communicate with the M25P16 as if it were an EPCS16? 

I am also still curious as to why the application would not let me add a new configuration device. Hmm.

[FvM · Accepted solution]

Hi,
Quartus programmer has no option to define serial flash, only CFI flash.
You can define serial flash in programming file converter tool. As said, it's not necessary in case of M25P16.

[Fakhrul]

Hi humandude,

I’m glad that your question has been addressed, I now transition this thread to community support. If you have a new question, feel free to open a new thread to get the support from Intel experts. Otherwise, the community users will continue to help you on this thread. Thank you.