Program the SPI flash of the TKey #

The SPI flash can be programmed either in the container or natively. If you are using our container you can go directly to step 2.

1. Download tools #

When programming the SPI flash we are using iceprog from our fork of the Yosys icestorm project:

https://github.com/tillitis/icestorm/

If you want to use iceprog natively you will need to compile only icestorm/iceprog in the “interfaces” branch with:

make PROGRAM_PREFIX=tillitis-

By default it installs with make install in /usr/local/bin.

Our OCI image tkey-builder includes our version of iceprog for use with Podman.

2. Program SPI flash #

First ensure that the TKey is inserted into the TKey Programmer and that the programmer is inserted into your computer.

Note for this to work, you need permission to speak to the raw USB device of the TKey Programmer. See Linux device permissions.

Podman #

If you’re on an SELinux system you might need to run this first to be able to access USB devices from the container:

setsebool container_use_devices=true

The simplest way is to use the make target

make -C contrib flash

which will start the container and program the SPI flash directly. If this succeeds you are done and can skip the remaining steps. Otherwise start the container using:

podman run --rm --device /dev/bus/usb/$(lsusb | grep -m 1 1209:8886 | awk '{ printf "%s/%s", $2, substr($4,1,3) }') -v .:/build:Z -w /build -it ghcr.io/tillitis/tkey-builder /usr/bin/bash

Programming #

In a native shell or your container shell:

tillitis-iceprog hw/application_fpga/application_fpga.bin

1. Download tools #

When programming the SPI flash we are using iceprog from our fork of the Yosys icestorm project:

https://github.com/tillitis/icestorm/

If you want to use iceprog natively you will need to compile only icestorm/iceprog in the “interfaces” branch with:

make PROGRAM_PREFIX=tillitis- OS=macos

By default it installs with make install in /usr/local/bin.

You can also download a binary release here:

https://github.com/tillitis/icestorm/releases

2. Program SPI flash #

First ensure that the TKey is inserted into the TKey Programmer and that the programmer is inserted into your computer.

After installing tillitis-iceprog, run:

tillitis-iceprog hw/application_fpga/application_fpga.bin

At the current state Tillitis does not provide a simple way of programming the SPI flash from a Windows machine. We are working on a solution.

When programming the SPI flash we are using iceprog from our fork of the Yosys icestorm project:

https://github.com/tillitis/icestorm/

Use the “interfaces” branch.

According to Yosys it shoud be possible to compile but Tillitis has not yet explored this solution, please see the bottom of Yosys download page if you want to try.